Barefoot Living in the Charming Hamlet of Scarborough

Just 45 minutes from Cape Town, Scarborough feels like a world away. Tucked between the mountains, wetlands and wild Atlantic coastline of the Southern Peninsula, this laid-back seaside village has long been cherished by those who know where to look. Here, at the foot of the Slangkop Cliffs, Abraca offers the kind of escape that makes slowing down feel effortless. Framed by sweeping views across the Cape Point Nature Reserve and surrounding wetlands, this beautifully considered retreat brings together the rugged beauty of its setting with a sense of understated, barefoot luxury.

The pristine beach is just a five-minute stroll from the house, reached by a gentle path through the wetlands. Often wonderfully quiet and uncrowded, it feels like a private stretch of coastline waiting to be discovered. It is this rare combination of natural beauty, seclusion and relaxed design that has earned Abraca a place among the handpicked stays featured by Perfect Hideaways.

Remote, rural and rugged yet luxurious and comfortable, Abraca possesses all the ingredients for complete relaxation. Scarborough itself adds another dimension. Beloved for its unspoilt beaches, spectacular mountain trails and untrammelled surf breaks, the village is also home to a burgeoning creative and wellness community encompassing food, art, music, coastal foraging and cold-water swimming.

Room for everyone

Designed for small groups of friends or a multi-generational family, Abraca accommodates everyone from tweens and teens to singletons, family groups and older guests with remarkable ease. Generously proportioned bedrooms come complete with desks, reading chairs and lamps, as well as the necessary technology for anyone wishing to retreat into solitude with their devices.

Laid out over three levels, the L-shaped property is divided into a trio of distinct zones. On the lower garden level, family quarters accommodate four guests sharing a spacious bathroom. Above, a loft suite—ideal for a couple or singleton—is afforded a welcome buffer of privacy by the living area beneath it. Two further generous en-suite bedrooms occupy the ground level near the kitchen and indoor-outdoor entertaining spaces.

Together, the arrangement allows the house to sleep 10 guests comfortably, while still offering something that can be elusive in a large holiday home: space to be together and space to disappear.

Perhaps that comes as little surprise. Although now under new ownership, Abraca began its current incarnation as the private retreat of interior designers Boyd Ferguson and his sister Geordi de Sousa Costa, partners in design studio Cecile & Boyd’s, who revolutionised the safari aesthetic 25 years ago with their ground-breaking design for Singita’s first lodge.

The art of gathering

Abraca’s communal spaces have been carefully considered around the rhythms of group living. An open-plan kitchen, dining area and fireplace snug on the ground floor flow out towards a covered outdoor BBQ, pool lounge and sumptuous rectangular stone pool. Around the corner, a communal fire pit surrounded by classic safari camping chairs invites evenings spent stargazing.

Three large covered verandahs further dissolve the boundary between house and garden. Fully furnished as outdoor rooms, they extend the living spaces into the landscape, while the garden itself unfolds as a series of places for play and tranquillity, conversation and contemplation, celebration and community.

Upstairs, a double living room combines a spacious television area with a fireside retreat. A mini-bar and coffee station attends to one of the more essential requirements of holiday life: ensuring there is little reason to interrupt the reverie of wetland, reserve and beach views with something as mundane as a trip downstairs to the kitchen.

The wraparound veranda is the place for sundowners. From here, the landscape becomes its own theatre, with herds of eland and ostrich frequenting this part of the reserve and the elusive Cape Eagle Owl sometimes hunting over the wetlands at dusk.

Inspired by nature

With its calming stone palette inside and out, Abraca expresses a particularly relaxed kind of barefoot luxury—a “farmhouse meets beach” aesthetic shaped directly by the natural beauty surrounding it.

Exposed beams overhead and monastic stone and solid oak underfoot create a restrained architectural backdrop. Against it, colourful contemporary art, handwoven fabrics and naive Indian country antiques bring personality and warmth, while cane furniture and lighting introduce a tactile modernity.

The result feels collected rather than decorated. Rustic elements sit comfortably beside contemporary pieces; colour is given room to sing against the quieter natural materials; and nothing appears too precious for sandy feet and long, languid days.

More importantly, everything feels intentional. The interiors speak to the differing ages, needs and tastes of the people who might gather here, just as the architecture makes room for both sociability and solitude.

That may ultimately be Abraca’s greatest luxury. In a place defined by beach, mountain, wetlands and open sky, the house does not compete with its setting. Instead, it offers a succession of comfortable places from which to experience it—around the fire, beside the pool, beneath a covered veranda or alone with a book.

It is the kind of retreat that makes you want to gather all your favourite people in one place, kick off your shoes and stay awhile.