Coming Home with Mungo and Petrichor

A little down the road from the Mungo Mill and up a winding jeep track into the hills you find Petrichor, home to Ilan, Daphne and their family. Atop a hill overlooking the Tsitsikamma mountain range, it’s here, this late summer, that Mungo had our latest lifestyle shoot with Nicola Suttle, a day long shoot tracing the sun as it wove light through and around the house.

Wayfarer and Summer Towels

Wayfarer Summer Towels

Pablo on the natural pool deck with Ruti Kikois

A heavy mist lay thick that early morning when we arrived, cloaking the surrounding hills. Greeted by a wood fired sauna, its warm wood interior and our linen gowns gave us the start to our shoot.

With the mist burnt off by the strengthening sun, the valley and hills revealed themselves. We moved to the natural pool, the dogs, Pablo and Karuna, trailing us. Pablo decided our carefully styled Ruti kikoi, intentionally laid just so on the decking, would be a great place for a morning nap.

Clouds trailed up and sometimes we waited for them to pass, so as to catch the light we needed, bouncing it into the vast sun soaked lounge, plushed with our cushions and the new Duo Blanket. The double weave of the Duo looking at home in the setting and picking up on the olive greens and blush pinks of the ericas in the veld growing lush about the home.

Shoots are varied full days; we chase light and deadlines, trying to get as many considered shots into our allotted time as we can, but in the soft interiors and verdant garden of Petrichor, the demands of styling and shooting sat lightly – the calm of the space holding us.

The Duo Blanket in Mesa

Our 12 hours there made us curious; what is an average day in this beautiful home and setting – We asked our hosts, Ilan and Daphne, to share what a day in their family’s life at Petrichor looks and feels like. Read about it here:

Daphne, Ilan and Raphael, photos by Amy Keevy

Ilan

The frogs start first. Then the birds. Then the dogs hear something moving through the fynbos, and that’s the day begun.

I make coffee and take it to the verandah. The Keurbooms valley is still in shadow, and there’s a thin orange line rising across the Tsitsikamma mountains. It’s quiet in a way that city people don’t have a word for; not the absence of noise, but a fullness; loeries calling across the valley, wind through the fynbos and the occasional bark from our dog, Karuna, who has spotted a bokkie on the trail or a porcupine having breakfast on our bulbs.

Winter mornings are my favourite. The sun rises and hits the black terracotta tiles above the fireplace, and moves across them throughout the morning. It turns the room into something living. 

Mungo Table linen and Cushions

“We couldn’t design that, we chose the tiles and orientation, but the sun did the rest. By the end of the day, it has made its way all the way round to kiss the raw terracotta tiles in the kitchen for its last goodbye.”

– Ilan Green, Petrichor host and co-creator

Daphne

Our son, Raphael, comes straight to the kitchen. He’s two and every morning is an event. Breakfast happens while he tells us of something he’s seen; a bird flying by or a spider in a web, something only he has noticed. His presence and the joy that consistently follows him, reminds me to join him – these moments will be over quickly.

I grew up on a farm in the Free State. Dirt, animals, open sky. I didn’t know it was special until I left. Working in health, I’ve come to understand what a childhood like that does to a nervous system; it regulates you. The ground under your feet, the rhythm of seasons, the honesty of the natural materials around you. We’re wired for it.

“I arrived with a feeling, not a floor plan. I needed soft curves, natural materials, a vegetable garden and a natural pool. I had a strong intuition for what a nervous system needs from its environment. Ilan translated that into material choices; the limestone underfoot, the oak joinery, the handmade terracotta…”

– Daphne Green, Petrichor host and co-creator

Ilan

Evenings are when the house shifts. The terracotta lights start to glow as the daylight fades. The architecture dissolves, and the home appears.

The sauna has become a daily ritual. It’s wood-fired, which means your planning starts two hours before you want to sit in it. That slowness is part of it, by the time it’s ready you’ve shifted gear. Sitting in the heat, overlooking the Tsitsikamma range, everything drops away. It’s the smallest space on the property and it gives me the biggest peace and healing.

My relationship with weather and seasons has shifted since living here. Being off-grid has forced me to become intimate with the natural world. As a city boy, I was initially overwhelmed, but it’s become the biggest gift. Not only the technical learning, but the gratitude for clean water, for the power of the sun.

Ilan and Daphne built their home around two core ideas; provenance – knowing where something comes from and finding integrity at every step, and that what you surround yourself with – from people to animals, to the materials you choose to live with, shape who you are. At Mungo, with our cloth rooted in process, and the people who make it connected to all steps in production, we resonate with this.

Petrichor and Mungo don’t ask you to admire them; they ask to live in them. Barefoot, with your family and friends, with seasonal joy in the everyday. And if you let it, that kind of living with and amongst, will change you.

As Ilan says “When you surround yourself with things that have a genuine story, your space becomes calmer. Even if your mind can’t name it, your body can tell the difference.”