PRESS ROOM

A Jewel in her CrownAuthor: Sharon Preston, The Property Magazine 0000-00-00

At the front door to jewellery designer Jenna Clifford’s Morningside studio is a vast Ming vase full of magnificent roses. Inside, reception is warm, plush and cosy, with vast overstuffed couches and lots of gilt. A huge black Belgian Shepherd is half asleep on one couch; a German Shepherd dozes on the carpet nearby. Wherever Jenna Clifford happens to be, she creates a relaxed, comfortable and homely environment – with plenty of style thrown in for good measure.

This isn’t Jenna’s first house – that one is a few blocks away, a haven she created for herself and her then two-year-old daughter, Shayna, when she got divorced in 1991. Wearing a chic cap on her head, stunning jewellery discreetly on show, Jenna sits behind her enormous desk which is covered with feminine touches… there’s a vase full of white roses, a pile of glossy magazines, a cellphone and a glass of water, pawpaw chunks in a pretty blue bowl.
 

Her office is a home from home; it’s where she spends up to 17 hours a day, five days a week, creating jewellery and overseeing her business. Jenna works late into the night – she catches a few winks in a pied-à-terre close by, and heads homewards, to a cottage on White River on weekends, to spend time with her family – her husband, Dex Kotze, and her three daughters, Shayna, 21, Chanelle, nearly 16, and Summer, who is eight.

‘I’ve never ever had the luxury of a beautiful home,’ Jenna confesses. ‘People assume I live in a palatial house, but I don’t. My current home is beautiful, but it’s a country cottage. My first house was a rundown cluster home. I’d just left my husband – a forced removal. I was devastated, shocked, traumatised – and I had nowhere to stay. I was lucky enough to get a bond to purchase it; it had only two miniature bedrooms and an open plan lounge/dining area, with passages opening onto the lounge, creating the feeling of space. Luckily, the overall look of the external cluster block was stunning, but the house itself was wrecked; it had been abused by tenants, and had cheap tiles and finishes.
 

‘I turned the house into my studio, in the process changing my business completely from being a factory jeweller into creating high end pieces. I lived in one bedroom and converted the rest into workable space. Initially, I was working 17 hours a day; this helped me get through the hell and pain and also enabled me to fix up the house. I first tackled the garden – something I’d do sometimes in the middle of the night. I had grown up without material things, so I used my creative juices to make it spectacular. I planted the garden from slips, painted the house myself, used old bottles for vases. I made it beautiful and created a home studio.’

Jenna proved firsthand that property is the biggest single investment a person can have. ‘It’s not instant gratification,’ she admits, ‘but you can create extreme beauty with very few resources. I bought that first house in 1991 for R390 000 and sold it three years later for about R750 000. Normally, property takes five years to appreciate; but as I’d taken it from derelict to pretty, I was able to sell it for a profit just three years later. The money I made from selling the house enabled me to put down a deposit on this one.’

Jenna’s current studio was a ‘steal’ in 1995. Located close to Morningside Clinic, it’s palatial yet understated – just the way she likes it. This one doubled as home for nine years, before Jenna and the family moved to White River. ‘The house was derelict when I bought it, and I had to fix it up. First off, I tackled the garden, restored the wooden windows and doors. Like my first house, I made it look good without crippling expenses,’ she says. ‘It’s not that I don’t want everything of the best – but sometimes you’ve got to use what you’ve got.’