When a Pretoria family, the Johnsons, bought a small farm in a secluded valley south of Lydenburg 40 years ago this month for a weekend retreat, they could never have dreamed that the property holding would expand and become Verlorenkloof, an own mountain home for many more families.

Over the years, weekend visitors to the farm would often express the wish to have a piece of land with a mountain, some river and a cottage where one could escape from city life. Sadly, this dream had become more difficult to fulfill, with increasing property prices and building costs, and all the risks that go with owning a farm.  So when an astoundingly beautiful neighbouring property came up for sale in the dark and uncertain days preceding the 1994 election the Johnsons took the plunge, bought the property and Verlorenkloof was born.

Together with the original property, the new land had much to offer. Bordered by the Crocodile River, one of the rivers in the escarpment where trout breed naturally, trout fishing was a major but by no means the only attraction. The land sweeps up through wetlands, grassland, indigenous bush and deep forest kloofs to the unspoilt montane grasslands of the Steenkampsberg escarpment.

As beautiful, diverse and unspoilt as the land was, an ownership model had to be sought to best make use of the natural resource while remaining affordable and sustainable. Timesharing at that time was more associated with glitzy resorts at the coast, but the family found the good utilization and sound legal structure potentially attractive. Verlorenkloof was structured to be limited to 24 units, with a focus only on nature based activities that would minimally impact the environment, and be serviced and maintained by people from the local community.

These aims sound quite common in today’s sustainability oriented tourism industry, but required a leap of faith in those days. The approach has not disappointed. It was possible to stay with the concept, develop incrementally, train staff and grow skills and sell the time in the units constantly over 12 years and through three worldwide recessions.

The most unique aspect of the timesharing structure at Verlorenkloof is syndication,  where you own two or four weeks in a specific unit, but use them on a wonderfully flexible basis throughout the year instead of being bound to a fixed week which may become unusable as holidays change.

The other advantage is that the ownership is in perpetuity, and with a generation of children growing up at Verlorenkloof on holidays and weekends, a circle has been completed and the Johnson family could not wish for any better way to share the privilege of a country place.