Inside Story
With her visionary contemporary South African art collection, curator Amy Ellenbogen personalises the modernist masterpiece her family calls home.
ART / ARCHITECTURE / 22.12.25
Read time / 11 mins
Mikael wears his take on an office t-shirt in a formal mid-weight cotton pique. On the blind behind him is the FIELDS brand totem, designed by Daniel Ting Chong.
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[01] In the entrance hall, natural light refracts off the citrusy-orange front door, generating a welcoming glow.
In the entrance hall, natural light refracts off the citrusy-orange front door, generating a welcoming glow.
In the entrance hall, natural light refracts off the citrusy-orange front door, generating a welcoming glow.
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“This is the forever house,” says Amy, who considers her family of four (plus two Abyssinian cats) its custodians.
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A skylight in the master bedroom wardrobe creates a natural sundial, keeping time near a Jeanne Hoffman painting.
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Architects Adèle Naudé Santos and A.P. de Souza Santos designed Amy’s home, and its four neighbouring houses, around the property’s existing oak trees.
“My spirit animal is an otter because an otter picks up stones and puts them in a little pocket on their body. Did you know that?” Amy Ellenbogen passes me a cup of freshly brewed Rooibos tea across her stainless-steel kitchen countertop.
“To build their…” I suggest.
“No,” says Amy. “They just love stones. As a child, my mom used to take off my nappy, and I'd have all these stones that I'd picked up.”
Amy has a very expressive tone — no doubt inherited from her thespian parents, and honed while reading bedtime stories to her 5-year-old twins — so I double-check that she’s being serious.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she confirms. “I've always been a collector — of some kind.”
The courtyard at the heart of the home filters natural light through glass-and-steel panels, seamlessly calibrating indoor and outdoor worlds.
Let’s nominate Amy’s Le Corbusier-level house the crown jewel of her formidable South African art collection. It’s certainly the largest piece in her possession, a four-bedroom family home in a leafy suburban pocket of the Western Cape, a modernist heritage building that would captivate any architect. It’s also a perfect living gallery for the rest of her (much more regular-sized) collection of paintings, photography, ceramics, sculptures and more.
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All five Santos houses, commissioned by Margaret Molteno for her children in 1972, have a stepped ramp leading to a rooftop garden that would have been visible to the matriarch from her higher neighbouring property.
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Below artworks by Daniella Mooney (left) and Michael Taylor, Amy’s nightstand essentials include an Opple toucan lamp and The Creative Act by Rick Rubin.
“Don't be afraid to stick something up with press stick or tape,” says Amy. “It’s okay. You can take it down. You can play around.”
Cameron Platter’s wooden chair sculpture blends in as successfully as it stands out. On the wall, clockwise from left, artworks by Johno Mellish, Jack Davison, Stephen Allwright and Pieter Hugo.
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Twins Jasper and Monty enjoy many a summer afternoon in the pool.
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Greenery from the home’s central courtyard softens the light in the bedroom hallway. Artworks by Inga Somdyala (left) and Peter Eastman hang adjacent to the glass panels.
Back in 1972, Margaret Molteno (1912-1985), a noted lady of culture and philanthropist, commissioned the architect power couple Adèle Naudé Santos (South African-born) and A.P. de Souza Santos (Mozambican-born) to design five family homes for her children on the sprawling garden below her own property.
Mr and Mrs Santos designed numerous industry-revered buildings in Cape Town before their divorce in 1984 and continued work across Africa and the US. The Molteno commission embodies the Santos’ aesthetic, infusing Modernist elegance with Structuralist pragmatism, articulated through a Brutalist honesty of materials.
Amy’s curation of her family home draws you in with its exceptional tonal rhythm, variations of medium and placement, and its sheer volume which, coupled with the sublime architecture, is transportive.
The houses wedge out from their cul-de-sac-facing front doors and garages onto what was originally a shared garden that slopes downward, allowing a view of Table Mountain’s more majestic, less publicised backside. Each house has a stepped ramp that leads to a rooftop garden which would have been visible to matriarch Molteno. “She looked down on these houses,” Adèle explains in a 2013 Open House recorded on the architect Ilze Wolff’s YouTube. “So conceptually we saw them as a landscape.”
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A snapshot of the twins’ playroom, which bursts at the seams with tools to stimulate the imagination.
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Amy and Jasper peek over the landing — accessible from inside and out — onto the living room. Above the Cameron Platter chair hangs a text-based artwork by William Kentridge. Just to the right, a painting by Daniella Mooney neighbours a larger work by Anna van der Ploeg above a painted ceramic by Andrew Wolford on the recessed shelf. The sculpture to the right of the pillar is also an Anna van der Ploeg.
A foundational principle of Amy’s curatorial work is her ability to identify and nurture new talent. “I think this is the gift that I've been given in my life,” she muses.
FIELDS sweaters are knitted from Responsible Wool Standard-certified fibres, meaning the sheep are ethically raised on farms that protect soil health and biodiversity.
[01] Mikael wears his take on an office t-shirt in a formal mid-weight cotton piqué. On the blind behind him is the FIELDS brand mark, a totem designed by Daniel Ting Chong.
FIELDS sweaters are knitted from Responsible Wool Standard-certified fibres, meaning the sheep are ethically raised on farms that protect soil health and biodiversity.
[01] Mikael wears his take on an office t-shirt in a formal mid-weight cotton piqué. On the blind behind him is the FIELDS brand mark, a totem designed by Daniel Ting Chong.
In the master bedroom, Monty grabs a snack while Amy unboxes a wooden work by Luca Evans, “who I think is one of the most exciting artists at the moment.”
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Art plays a central role in Monty and Jasper’s upbringing. “I believe that the work that surrounds my children will affect them — will add an element of curiosity,” says Amy. On the wall, from left, artworks by Jeanne Gaigher, Asemahle Ntlonti and Katherine Spindler. The tapestries (on the wall and couches) are by Margaret Courtney-Clarke and Virginia MacKenny. The RWANDA poster is by Alfredo Jaar.
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At noon, light skims artworks by Hugh Byrne and Marsi van de Heuvel in the stairwell.
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Slouchy chairs facilitate the home’s indoor-outdoor lifestyle.
“Number 1 was, in a way, the prototype,” Adèle continues. “And then there were variations on the theme, depending on the trees. When you get to the last one, there was a grove of trees, so we wrapped the house around the trees.” That ‘last one’ is Amy’s house. From the skylight-illuminated front door, your eye travels straight past the kitchen and playroom into the living room, or to the bedroom hallway on the right. The courtyard at the heart of the home filters natural light through glass-and-steel panels, seamlessly calibrating indoor and outdoor worlds. Both wings of the house offer ample runway for the twins, who fly in from pre-primary school, past the sibling Abyssinian cats, to land either in their playroom across from the kitchen or the pool below the master bedroom.
“The moment you frame something, you bring gravity to that work,” says Amy. “The simplest thing can hold so much more weight in a space.”
Another South African architect, Bettina Woodward, was the home’s previous owner. When Amy and her husband, Will, were looking at a different Santos house a few roads over, “I said to Will, 'Why don't you phone her and ask what it's actually like to live in one of these houses?'” Amy remembers. “They were talking on the phone and she said, 'Why don't you just buy my house?' And he said yes.”
For Bettina, who cares deeply about modernist heritage, selling to Amy was a smart move. Amy considers her family the building’s custodians, a role she is more than qualified to fulfil as a visionary curatorial figure in South African art. Her legacy includes co-founding SMITH gallery (2015-2020), curating the FNB JoburgArtFair and MORE Family Collection Artist Residency, as well as international shows like Neofuzz, which flew 20 African design objects to Paris for the Also Known As Africa Art and Design Fair.
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At home, gallery curatorial rules don’t apply. “I’m gonna hang a fuck-off big Johno Mellish photograph in the kitchen because I can and it’s great,” says Amy. “But I might get bored of that, and then I can move it.”
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Jasper trials a new mode of transportation on the terracotta tiles. “There’s an effortless flow in this house,” says Amy.
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Flanking the kitchen counter, Mitchell Gilbert Messina and Katie Thomas’s Volcano Agamograph is the twin’s favourite work for its two-sided appeal.
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From the outside lounge, the house’s modernist, geometric angles frame the rooftop garden and the eastern ‘back’ of Table Mountain.
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Throughout the house, bathrooms are lined in floor-to-ceiling white tiles, creating a distinctly modernist tonal interlude.
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In the master bedroom, the “instant mushroom” work was a gift from Jeanne Gaigher. Tucked into the frame’s left-hand corner is a print of a Lindokuhle Sobekwa photograph which Amy describes as a “dream work” to add to her collection.
Amy’s curation of her family home draws you in with its exceptional tonal rhythm, variations of medium and placement, and its sheer volume which, coupled with the sublime architecture, is transportive. Every piece of furniture, from the HAY design mugs to the Gubi light above the dining room table, feels like the best version of itself. And yet, still, somehow, nothing feels precious. “This house is for living,” Amy says, and it comes across. She’s conjured a creative energy that makes you as a visitor feel braver to venture out and personalise your own space.
On that note, Amy is generous with curatorial tips. First and foremost: “Colour brings so many dynamics into your life.” She takes a fearless approach, keeping in mind that there’s no such thing as permanence — if you don’t like something, change it.
Everything doesn’t have to be high art: “I started collecting posters from shows.”
You have the power to elevate just about anything in your home. “The moment you frame something, you bring gravity to that work. The simplest thing can hold so much more weight in a space.”
Every piece of furniture feels like the best version of itself. And yet, still, somehow, nothing feels precious.
Experimentation is key. “Don't be afraid to stick something up with press stick or tape ’cause... it’s okay. You know what I mean? You can take it down. You can play around.”
A foundational principle of Amy’s curatorial work is her ability to identify and nurture new talent. “I think this is the gift that I've been given in my life,” she muses. “Of... seeing things. My gut can tell me it’s important. It's interesting. It's on another level.” Amy’s tone is imbued with a profound sense of care when she talks about her creative work — as if she’s solving a puzzle, the final pieces in close reach. She remembers the feeling of walking into the interdisciplinary artist Anna van der Ploeg’s graduate show. “It's a deep sense of, I instantly want to make sure that that person knows how great they are. And I want to protect them and make sure that they have what they need to do what I think should be done.” Anna’s first solo show was, of course, at SMITH.
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A pair of Cameron Platter drawings prowl the stairwell.
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Colour-coded joinery in the twin’s room is a prime, and appropriately playful, example of Amy’s contemporary take on her home’s modernist architecture.
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Glass on an Anna van der Ploeg artwork reflects the guest room shower.
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Minnie Cat, the younger Abyssinian, self-grooms on a colour-block Jody Paulsen for AKJP Studio tablecloth, which Amy has inventively repurposed as a bedspread.
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Amy unrolls a tapestry by artists Virginia MacKenny and Margaret Courtney-Clarke, woven in Namibia for an upcoming THATCH project.
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A wealth of windows and skylights ensure a constant connection to the outside world—an ideal design feature for Amy, who grew up in KwaZulu-Natal and has a deep appreciation for nature.
“I still want to curate shows,” says Amy. But, “I don’t know if I’m a curator in the academic sense — it doesn't drive me. I love connecting people. I love being part of stories. I also love design as much as I love art.” Hence, she has a number of projects germinating through her company, THATCH, which facilitates product and retail development, art curation and more.
As it happens, Amy’s THATCH business partner, Yvonne Brecher Lundie (another architect, it’s true!), lives two doors down. On this story’s shoot day in October, Yvonne’s days-old baby sleeps peacefully in her lounge as Team HOMEY takes a peak at her sibling Santos house.
“I love connecting people.” With her company, THATCH, Amy facilitates product and retail development, art curation and more. “I also love design as much as I love art.”
“Women, in this phase of our lives, generally have children, or if they don't have children, have other expectations on their shoulders. You've obviously plugged into your profession, but you've also had to semi plug out of your profession in order to juggle both things.” With this in mind, Amy’s way of working is very much post-corporate, unchained from traditional rules and structures. She’s built a hive of consultants, often confidantes, working on the various aspects of the business. “So, all these people I'm working with are juggling both things. It morphs and it shapes in interesting ways.”
The future is bright — alight with opportunity. “My favourite thing is like, I'll think about something, and then I'll think of the artist that this would be amazing to do it with. And the outcome is always better than I think it's going to be. You know what I mean?” —
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“I'm not afraid of colour,” says Amy. The proof is in the master bedroom, her favourite room in the house because of the way the light streams in. Artworks, clockwise from left, by Laurinda Belcher, Michael Taylor, and Anthony Fox.
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“Sometimes the posters for the shows are better than the actual shows,” says Amy. Donald Judd is one of her all-time favourites. “This poster was as good as the show.” So she upped the ante, commissioning an artisan to carve and paint the poster on a block of wood. “I wanna do a series of them, coz I think they’re so great.”
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A bird’s eye view of the modernist heritage home’s courtyard. “I don't feel like I live in a museum,” says Amy. “But I do feel that I want to protect it as much as I can.”
Curator
AMY ELLENBOGEN
