On my last day in Johannesburg I was the guest speaker at a Conde Nast House & Garden reader event hosted by the Editor in Chief Liz Morris, along with the fabulous Nina Campbell. Both Nina and I had a great time with each other and with Liz, talking about our experiences and sharing our woes and our pleasures. It was the first time I’d seen Nina’s work up close and I was quite amused by the fact that she is a traditional designer that does it with a modern slant and I’m a modern designer who adds a traditional slant. So we were literally at opposite ends of the scale, but still with a lot of things in common.

The next day Nina and I flew to Cape Town and were put up in The Cellars-Hohenhort hotel. Another fantastic hotel, it is on nine acres of extraordinary grounds, beautiful gardens with blooming roses everywhere and a wonderful room. I felt like a king.

Nina and I went shopping and I found my favorite, called Africa Nova (go visit their website!)  - where I bought some baby toys for friends who just had babies. I also found these great ottomans made out of washed felt that look like pebbles for my apartment and really great earrings for another friend. I am happy to say that Nina beats me at shopping! We visited some other shops in the colorful Bo-Kaap area and then had a luncheon at the publisher of House & Garden’s house, Elizabeth Rhees-Jones. Again, perfectly manicured gardens and a charming home. The luncheon was great with such interesting people ranging from bankers to landscapers to designers and it was an invigorating experience. Not only because I was drinking pink champagne, but the conversation dealt with politics, travel, global affairs – truly rich on every level. Liz served a combination of different meats and chicken, great little appetizers like glazed red onions on a pastry shell (I think I ate at least 7 of them!) and then we had another breakfast discussion the next day for the Capetonian designers. Again, now that Nina and I knew each other even better, it turned out be a really fun time with lots of laughter and jokes.

From there it was straight to the airport for a grueling flight from Cape Town to Johannesburg, then a 2 hour layover, then a flight from Johannesburg to Paris followed by a 90 min wait and then on to New York, totaling 19 hours of traveling. However, I arrived wide-eyed and bushy tailed after sleeping approximately 14 hours!

My trip to South Africa with Rooms on View was an incredible one and the warmth and creativity of the people I came in contact with has left me with lasting memories. If you’ve been lucky enough to have been there, what are your favorite memories?

The next day I went shopping at Amatuli – I always shop there when I’m in Johannesburg – to find objects for VW Home. I found a great Ethiopian chair, which I had been looking for for a client, as well as some Dogon ladders.

Earlier that day I had walked through the different booths at the convention center to select my top ten exhibitors at Rooms on View. Trust me, it was really hard to choose from all the creativity on display. From African manufacturers to contemporary furniture lines there were so many designers and so many different booths. It was a really fun experience.

I met the wonderful Liz Morris who is the editor of Conde Nast House and Garden and an absolute gem, charming and delightful. We immediately hit it off! Her magazine’s booth, designed by Maira Koutsoudakis of Life was really exquisite with wonderful objects and it incorporated really refined and outstanding bush elements.

That night I went to drinks at one of SA’s top interior designers Stephen Falcke’s extraordinary black and white townhouse. It looked straight off the pages of Architectural Digest. The house is done entirely in black and white and features incredible artwork and his personal finds from around the world. Naturally it was rounded off by his bushy white cat, which would have given Nene a go in the cuteness factor!

I saw so many people whom I’d met ten years ago on my first SA trip and we discussed many things, from the economy – they’re not in the plush either and it was interesting to again have that reassurance that we’re all hurting together – to how the design industry in South Africa has progressed over the last 10 years. It is quite extraordinary. Wonderful new designers are breaking ground in their style and the sense that we are living in a creative global society is truly proven by what I saw there. Many of the spaces could have been in a top  New York apartment.

For my fifth visit to South Africa I had a set plan in my mind of what I wanted to do. But once the social / design / lecture / ball started rolling, my initial plans quickly went by the wayside.

I was put in The Saxon Boutique Hotel in Sandhurst, Johannesburg and was able to live the very grand life. I was in the Presidential Suite – not bad for a Cuban refugee, right? – and the beautiful grounds of this amazing hotel set the perfect foundation from which the whirlwind started.

The first night I went to dinner at CIRCA gallery where a collection of South Africa’s top designers and celebrities and architects gathered, invited by Sumari Krige, the organizer of Rooms on View, the show I was the guest speaker at. We had dinner in a brand new and breathtaking private dining room that offered great views of Johannesburg from its terraces. The menu was distinctly African, mixing different flavors trough small dishes dispersed on the table. I was seated next to the Oprah of SA, Jenny Crwys-Williams from 702 Talk Radio, and she told me about a great new show at the Johannesburg Art Gallery featuring work by a Cuban artist. So that went on my list of things that I just had to do.

That first evening was just really the beginning of what turned out to be a wonderful trip. More about it all tomorrow…