Decorated by the Kalahari

How Feline Fields Lodge got its look

Walk into Feline Fields Lodge for the first time and something registers before you've had a chance to articulate it. The space feels right in the way that spaces rarely do, warm and considered and immediately, instinctively comfortable. It takes a moment to understand why, and then it becomes obvious. Everything inside is a conversation with everything outside, and the Kalahari, it turns out, is an extraordinary interior designer.

The Kalahari's ancient sands shift through a spectrum of ochres and burnt oranges and deep, dusty reds that change with the light throughout the day, the landscape at dawn a pale, almost silver gold, by midday a warm amber, at sunset something so richly saturated that it looks as though someone has turned up the colour on the world. 

Feline Fields Lodge absorbs this palette and brings it inside, the soft furnishings, the cushions piled generously on swinging couches and deep loungers and fat sun-sack chairs all pulling from the same earthy spectrum. Rich ochre, warm terracotta, the deep burnt red of Kalahari sand in late afternoon light. It's a palette that asks nothing of you except to relax into it, and it does this very effectively.

Wood, rattan and the beauty of natural texture

The furniture at Feline Fields Lodge is largely custom-made from wood, and the difference between a room furnished with pieces made specifically for a space and one furnished from a catalogue is immediately felt if not always immediately identified. The tables and chairs have the weight and character of things that were built to last, their grain and texture part of the design rather than incidental to it. Rattan appears throughout, its open weave and warm honey tones connecting the interior to the materials the landscape itself produces, and the overall effect is of a space that breathes, that has air and texture and an honest relationship with the natural world just beyond the walls.

An interior with personality

What makes Feline Fields Lodge genuinely interesting to spend time in is the eclecticism that runs through it, the sense that the space has been put together by people with good instincts and an eye for what works rather than by a design committee with a mood board. Arabic-style lanterns hold candles that cast a warm, shifting light across the communal areas. Wicker cocoon chairs hang in companionable proximity to Louis XV-style armchairs, a pairing that should perhaps not work as well as it does. In the library, clean-lined modern Scandinavian chairs sit alongside bookshelves that invite the kind of browsing that long afternoons in the bush make entirely possible.

A vintage-style record player brings an unexpected warmth to the space, its presence a reminder that the best technology is the kind that makes you feel something rather than simply doing something. Blown-up photographs of the Ju/'hoansi San line the walls, their scale giving them an immediacy and intimacy that smaller prints could never achieve, connecting the interior to the human story of the landscape outside in a way that's genuinely affecting.

The bar and the magic of evening light

The bar at Feline Fields Lodge deserves particular mention, because what happens to it in the evening is worth planning your sundowner around. Copper-toned overhead lights cast a warm, burnished glow that the candlelight picks up and amplifies, and the combined effect as the Kalahari dark closes in outside is of a space that feels both intimate and quietly glamorous. It's the kind of light that makes every conversation better and every drink taste exactly as it should after a day in the bush.

Nooks, crannies and the art of the slow afternoon

One of the pleasures of Feline Fields Lodge that guests consistently mention is the quality of its nooks and crannies, the sense that wherever you settle, you've found exactly the right spot. A comfy chair in a quiet corner... A deep fat-sack lounger overlooking the pool... A library chair pulled close to the shelves... The lodge has been arranged with an intuitive understanding of how people actually inhabit a space when they're given the time and permission to do so properly, and the result is a place that accommodates every mood and every kind of afternoon, from the sociable to the entirely solitary.

The logic of comfort in a wild place runs through every decision, from the plumpness of the cushions to the warmth of the evening light, and the Kalahari, for its part, provides the view that pulls it all together. Which is, when you think about it, exactly as it should be.