Spotlight Hope Garden Furniture

Established in 1992, Hope Garden Furniture was founded on owner Adrian Hope’s “romantic inclination to be a blacksmith”.

“I was in a D.H. Lawrence state of mind,” Hope laughs.

Hope began by bartering and borrowing original French café chairs and garden benches, which he then set out to replicate using the exact material and machinery in his workshop, a disused cold storage room near Cape Town.

“Seeing how long the original ones had lasted, I was convinced that this was the method in the recipe for longevity and besides, I wanted people not to be able to tell them apart from my old ones”

Hope was later joined by David Timothy, a self-made engineer and collector and renovator of old heavy-duty pre-war engineering machinery.

While Hope focused on design, Timothy focused on recreating the precise metal pieces needed for the furniture using his renovated or remodelled machines.

Over the years, the company has grown to include a small team of skilled metal workers who have all been trained to use traditional tools and methods to create and assemble the company’s beautiful garden furniture.

Today, the company offers two collections of outdoor furniture: a traditional range and a contemporary range consisting out of various chairs, benches, tables, planter boxes, topiary frames and more.

Some of the company’s most popular pieces include the original café chair, which gave rise to the enterprise, along with its pretty companion, the café table in wood or metal, and the contemporary Origami chair, a versatile and visually interesting chair, offering an extraordinary level of comfort that far exceeds that of any deck chair.

What’s more, to ensure the longevity of the furniture and their customers’ lasting satisfaction and delight, the company also offers maintenance and renovation services for all their products, as well as replacement pieces.