The landscaped gardens surround architect, Geoffrey Summerhayes’ Cape Dutch style cellar door building. The early houses in the Cape Town area were built in this architectural style. Unique to that small area of the world they are unquestionably beautiful. The style has sources as widely different as mediaeval Holland and Germany, the France of the Huguenots and the islands of Indonesia. The earliest houses were single-storied dwellings and purely utilitarian.

At the beginning of the 18th Century, with increasing prosperity in the towns and the development of wine farms, the houses began to expand. They began to reflect the growing needs and individual taste of each owner. It was at this stage that the front gable began to make its appearance. The gables, largely in the hands of skilled craftsmen imported as slaves from the east, began to develop in a variety of styles and decorations.

By the mid-18th Century, homeowners had begun to add wings on either end of the basic structures, resulting in the so-called U-plan. Floors were made of compacted earth or Robben Island slate and shutters protected windows. At about the same time, the T-plan was evolving in the rural areas. In this design, a single wing, with the kitchen at the end, was attached like a tail to the center of the basic building. Later another wing was added at right angles to the T and parallel to the original building. And so the H-plan evolved. This plan became the ultimate design in country houses and on which some of the western Cape's most elegant farmsteads were designed. Usually a wall encircled the whole farmyard. With the backdrop of blue mountains, this presented an image of settled stability.