Rietbron: Splendid isolation in a lovingly restored dusty Karoo village

In the winter of 2004, a slightly-built guy with bushy eyebrows and a studious mien arrives out of a dust storm in a middle-of-nowhere place called Rietbron.

Pedestrians don’t pitch up at Rietbron every day of the week, because the village lies on a sandy smudge on the map between the major Karoo centre of Beaufort West and the charming town of Willowmore to the south-east. 

Our dusty, bespectacled newcomer is Dr Peter Kenneth Le Sueur, a highly-qualified quantum physicist with a deep knowledge of steam trains. He was also, in his time, a Kimberley ghost guide. When first we met, we discussed the common thermodynamic link between ghosts and trains and the transfer of energy, a fundamental cornerstone of the workings of the Universe. It was like talking to a trainspotting, ghost-busting Einstein. He said: “Death is just a scrap merchant, recycling matter into energy.” 

Rietbron: Beautiful Nagmaal Huisies, dirt roads and utter silence. Image: Chris Marais

Big skies over Rietbron, with the promise of rainfall in the evening. Image: Chris Marais

‘A living museum’

De le Seuer buys a house and hires Anthony Cohen, the restorer of Rietbron, to enclose the porch so he can have more darkness and a bit of an escape from noisy morning birds. 

When Anthony Cohen first arrived in Rietbron, it was in the company of his mother, who had bought a little house here back in 1978 for R600. “My mom and I could not believe what it was like here,” he says. “It was a living museum. Everything was old and authentic. But then people started selling their stuff to the antique dealers of Oudtshoorn. They thought they were getting money for nothing, but they were actually giving away their heritage.”

Cohen started buying houses in Rietbron, mainly to revive them to their former glory and prevent them from being “modernised”. 

A glorious hideaway

Driving in on the gently undulating dirt road from the Willowmore side, our first indication of life is the green smudge of trees around the graveyard and then the top half of the face-brick Moederkerk, with its legendary springbok spire. 

Surrounding the church are deceptively tiny dwellings built around a century ago, mostly as Nagmaalhuisies by the farmers – places to come for communion, markets and match-making. Most of the large backyards stilcul boast a braai chimney and an outdoor privy. There are working wind pumps, pepper trees and saltbush hedges – essential dryland garden elements.

The Moederkerk in the middle of town, with its spire topped by a flying springbok weathervane. Image: Chris Marais

Many backyards sport windpumps, spinning in the breeze and pulling up sweet water. Image: Chris Marais

A classic country backyard: never complete without grandfather’s old bakkie. Image: Chris Marais

The Kapok Winkel trading store is the centre of all commercial action in Rietbron. Image: Chris Marais

There is only one shop left – the former Rietbron Kontant Winkel, now called Kapok Winkel – at the crossroads facing the township. If you want a car mechanic, head off to Beaufort. A doctor? Willowmore has them. The weekly shopping? Ditto Willowmore. Rietbron, with its almost total lack of amenities, is the perfect ‘getaway town’, a glorious escape from an ever-madding crowd. And there’s not a mall in sight. 

Inner secrets of Rietbron structures

We’ve come to see Anthony Cohen. It’s not that difficult to track him down, dressed in his signature floppy hat against the sun and oversized wool jacket against the late winter cold. 

Cohen’s one regret is that he didn’t pitch up earlier to save the old leiwater system of furrows, which traditionally waters the street trees and back yard groves of a small Karoo town. In the ‘interests of progress’, the furrows were closed and water was piped to houses. As a result, many of the trees died, including the hardy beefwoods. The old Padda Dam, which fed one part of the leivoor system, has the look of a long-abandoned goat kraal. The water furrows had been built by farmers who were given the work during the Great Depression, says Anthony. They were built without cement.

The Padda Dam that once stored water for a section of leivoor (furrow) system. Image: Chris Marais

If anyone knows the inner secrets of structures around Rietbron, it is he. In the houses he has restored, Cohen has stripped away paint and plaster, right down to the clay bricks. The lime turns brittle over the years, and the distemper that is often added to whitewash is oily. It repels any other layers on top and has to be chopped away until the house stands with its bones picked clean, ready for a facelift. 

The shuttered homes

Rietbron’s homes were mostly built in the decades after the town was founded in 1910, showing little sign of the fussy, frilly Victorian age, although many do have the characteristically curved stoep roofs – bellcast, Regency and bullnose. They were an expression of what was locally suitable: clay bricks from the veld, flat roofs, and high ceilings against the heat.

Also because of the heat and dust, shutters are crucial for houses that are left empty for any length of time. The windows are usually six-paned, often made with Oregon pine, which is really Douglas. Doctor Le Sueur's house is shuttered, ready for his return in a few months.

Most houses in the main part of town still cost about R380,000, according to Cohen, who says he can build for an astonishingly low R3,000 a square metre. He and his sidekick, young Brandon Johnson, have been working together now for the past ten years. They do everything, from making shutters to plumbing and electrical.

“We are slow, but we work properly. If something needs to dry for 24 hours, then we leave it to dry. Too many builders cut corners. But that can weaken the structures.”

Busy in the workshop – Brandon Johnson and Anthony Cohen. Image: Chris Marais

Karoo Cubism

Between projects in the village, Cohen builds gravesites with the classic Rietbron stone chip topping in such a way that burrowing little creatures like ground squirrels and meerkats can gain no entry. He also takes his prowess out to the township.

“I’ve got to show you this one extension I’ve done,” says Cohen, his eyes gleaming. “I call it Karoo Cubist.”

We take a drive out to the township to see his ‘Karoo Cube’. It is, indeed, a thing of beauty, the envy of Petro Tshandu’s neighbours in an otherwise drab RDP ensemble of identical little structures. Inside the perfect ‘cube’ is a lounge leading into the kitchen and living area. 

With the late sun gilding his face, Cohen explains why he added grey ‘quoins’ to the corners, usually made by the ‘crosshatching’ of stones, but in this case, with cement and paint. “It’s always the corners that get dirtiest first, and it was a way of strengthening the walls without adding too much cost.”

Anthony Cohen explaining the concept of Karoo cubism in Rietbron’s township. Image: Chris Marais

The Golden Mean

What underpins his house plans and everything he creates – from doors to shutters to houses to garden gates and even graves – is the elegance of mathematics and the Golden Mean. “I design a house using a calculator. Everything is about proportion and the ratio of 1.618.”

I have to confess to him that I am a mathematical Gobi Desert.

“You’re going to have to show me,” I beg. “What do you mean when you’re talking about the loci of squares and perfect rectangles and pentagram houses?”

Cohen, taking pity on me and on my notebook, carefully draws a series of interlocking squares and rectangles, joined by a radius that widens into an ever-growing spiral. He explains that the classic builders of old often used this ratio, which yields proportions that are intensely and mystically pleasing to the human eye. The Golden Mean apparently underpins the natural design of everything from the arrangement of petals to spiral galaxies, snail shells and tree branches. A healthy animal’s organs, and even the features of a lovely child’s face, have something to do with this harmonious ratio.

New Karoo builders, beware

Cohen tries to explain it to Chris, who treacherously moves away and starts framing up another picture of the wide-open streets and lovely little houses. Finally, Cohen explains it to me in words I can understand. 

“It is like a divine formula for harmony, balance and beauty.” 

He admires the pragmatism of Karoo builders who came before him. 

“The methods they deployed made complete sense. So many of the old houses used to have slate or stone at the foundations, for damp-coursing. When new builders come along, they just use cement for damp-coursing, reasoning that it doesn’t rain all that often in the Karoo. But, oh, it does. Water can’t penetrate slate, but cement actually draws it further and further up.”

Designed for maximum shade: Anthony Cohen remodelled this Karoo house for Dr le Seuer. Image: Chris Marais

He takes us to a house he has rebuilt for a client. It is small but elegant. Despite the missing fanlight above the door, it is pleasing and looks balanced. The proportions are based on a pentagram, or five-pointed Bethlehem star. It appears to be exactly the same proportions as a Karoo brakdakkie dwelling.

“The little classic Karoo houses were designed for extension. You could very easily just knock down a wall and build bigger, even add a section with a pitched roof, if you wanted.”

What drives him to do this? The pickings in a tiny place like Rietbron remain very slim.

“When I lived in Cape Town, I attended the farewell party of an architect, and one little question that someone asked just stuck in my brain:

‘What has he done? What has he achieved?’

“I hope I am leaving behind a town that is more beautiful than when I found it.” DM/ML

This is an extract from Karoo Roads I – Tales from South Africa’s Heartland, by Chris Marais and Julienne du Toit. 

'Karoo Roads' Collection. Image: Chris Marais

For an insider’s view on life in the Dry Country, get the three-book special of tales of the Karoo with monochrome images, Karoo Roads I, Karoo Roads II and Karoo Roads III for only R800, including courier costs in South Africa. For more details, contact Julie at [email protected]

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