Kubili House

Kubili House is a 26,900 square feet luxury private residence set within Thornybush Game Reserve, part of the Greater Kruger National Park. What they offer is a Safari Lifestyle and not just the experience. The house includes 5 bedrooms, 3 swimming pools, steam room, a private game viewer and 3 fully equipped camping vehicles. The house is directly situated on the bank of the largest dam in the reserve which is the main watering hole in the north of the reserve, providing a consistent flow of animal activity viewable from any of the many decks. Game drives accompanied by a personal field guide and tracker are available at any time. Their style is discreet and tailored specifically to guest requirements.

Kubili House is the dream of owners Julian and Aida Koski. The Lodge offers complete solitude from the outside world and embraces the ancient understanding that there is no time in Africa. There are no schedules, no commitments and no obligations — Kubili House is where you reconnect to that which you have lost.

The house is conceived in two parts, drawing on both ancient and modern influences: earthy, organic materiality expressed in abstracted modernist-inspired forms. One part is an open Mies van der Rohe’s inspired pergola with a floating roof, and the other is its weighty, rocky, monolithic counterpart with a “more Moorish, Moroccan, Zimbabwean ruins-type look.” Throughout the process of designing and building the house, the owners were very sensitive to the age of the untouched landscape and were wary of constructing something gleaming and brand new.

In the pergola, the rocks give way to the smooth finishes of the floors and suspended ceilings. This space is all about openness and looking out. The furniture here — dominated by Donna Karan’s Urban Zen solid teak — is low to the ground. The fireplace, too, is on the ground, beneath a massive chimney dome custom made and inspired by the brass bells in the temples of Kyoto. The furniture is designed to immerse you with the landscape. The idea is that you don’t want to be up, above the animals. You want to be at the eye level of the animals passing by.

There is a subtle nod to the Japanese Wabi aesthetic, the belief that there is perfection in imperfection, evidenced in the handmade African clay tiles with their almost imperceptible gold-leaf flaws.

The scale of the rooms dictated that much of the furniture had to be custom-made, with no simple thematic approach. The disparate materials and furniture pieces help create a sense of the passage of time and change — of being lived in rather than decorated. Antique wooden beams from France bring with them a sense of human time. In the villa’s reclaimed wood floors, further layer a sense of age and the passage of time onto the architecture.

All these contrasts — the monolithic and the weightless, the open and enclosed, the ancient and modern, the north and the south, water and drought — create an aura of mystery, much like the landscape itself and ruins that inspired the house.

About Thornybush Game Reserve

Adjacent to the Greater Kruger National Park lies 11 500 hectares of pristine African bushveld, this is the Thornybush Game Reserve. The reserve is home to an abundance of species - 147 mammals including the "Big Five", 114 reptiles, 507 birds, 49 fish, 34 amphibians and 336 trees. The reserve is predominantly open savannah and with a near perfect year-round climate, it is the ideal African safari holiday destination.

The classic bush landscape both absorbs and comforts you as if you’ve happened upon an old friend. A well-known destination for local and international visitors Thornybush has earned its reputation as one of the country’s finest bush experiences. Situated within 14 000 hectares of pristine wilderness, adjacent to the Kruger National Park, the Thornybush Nature Reserve is a true escape from the madness of city life. This haven, which is just over 5 hours’ drive from Johannesburg has scooped numerous world firsts, both for conservation and hospitality. Thornybush Game Reserve has evolved over the years into a visitor’s paradise. Bush lovers can saturate themselves, not only in the big five, but also in the remarkable fauna and flora.