The billionaire’s wife who created South Africa’s most exclusive lifestyle and food brand

Karen Roos, married to billionaire businessman Koos Bekker, created South Africa’s most exclusive lifestyle and food brands and helped launch many world-class hotels.

Roos was born and raised in South Africa’s capital, Pretoria. She met her future husband, Bekker, at Stellenbosch University.

She became a journalist and served as fashion editor of Glamour magazine in New York during the 1980s. She later launched Red magazine in South Africa.

Her love for interior decorating led her to collaborate with fellow décor journalist Annemarie Meintjes to produce Huis-Huis, a successful décor programme for SABC 2.

In 2003, Roos and Meintjes collaborated to publish South, a definitive look at South African attitudes and approaches to interior décor.

She received local and international acclaim for this book. It was widely sold through prestigious décor and designer outlets in Europe.

Roos also authored numerous other books, including Outdoor Living, Agtstyle, Eight Styles, Buite, and Fast Decor: Creative Ideas for Instant Decorating.

In 2005, Roos was appointed as the editor of the leading South African décor magazine, Elle Decoration.

Her flair for style was a great asset after Koos Bekker bought Babylonstoren, a wine estate in the Drakenstein Valley in the Cape Winelands, in 2007.

Roos commissioned French architect Patrice Taravella to plan the layout of the garden. His work at Prieuré Notre Dame d’Orsan in France had impressed her greatly.

There, Taravella had reconstructed a medieval cloistered garden on the site of a restored 12th-century monastery.

He created one of the best-known gardens in South Africa at Babylonstoren. It is globally renowned and visited by thousands of tourists each month.

The garden comprises 15 clusters spanning vegetable areas, stone and pome fruits, nuts, citrus, berries, bees, herbs, ducks, chickens, and a prickly pear maze.

Gravity feeds water from a stream by rills into the garden, flowing through ponds planted with edible lotus, nymphaea lilies and waterblommetjies.

Every one of the more than 300 varieties of plants in the garden is edible or has medicinal value. The fruit and vegetables from the garden are harvested all year round.

Along the garden’s edge, a natural stream flows from the Simonsberg Mountain to the Berg River, creating a space for indigenous wild olives to flourish.

Apart from creating one of South Africa’s most exclusive destinations at Babylonstoren, Roos and Bekker are also behind many other luxury hotels.

These include The Newt in Somerset, Vignamaggio between Florence and Siena, Over-Amstel Boerderij near Amsterdam, and The Story of Emily in St Ive, Cornwall.

Their latest creation is Blou in Keurboomstrand, a new addition to Bekker’s luxury estate offerings.

Babylonstoren luxury lifestyle and food products

Apart from reviving Babylonstoren and creating one of South Africa’s most exclusive estates, Roos also launched the country’s most sought-after lifestyle and food brands.

Babylonstoren offers a wide range of products, from biscuits, chocolates, and nuts to bath, body, and home products.

The Babylonstoren Farm Shop offers fresh food and vegetables, breads, meats, sweets, cookies, nuts, herbs, and eggs.

The wines produced at Babylonstoren tell the tale of this Boland region. The wine cellar is a library of winemaking processes used worldwide.

The wine cellar includes amphorae, clay pots to open cement fermenters, and concrete egg-shaped vessels.

Winemaker Klaas Stoffberg and cellar master Charl Coetzee create limited-edition wines using this equipment for the Babylonstoren Wine Club.

The farm’s standard range of wines is created using state-of-the-art methods, including modern stainless-steel tanks and oak barrels.

The range comprises four whites, four reds, a Provençal-style rosé and a darling Cap Classique called Sprankel.

Babylonstoren also makes its own biltong. “We use the best cuts of beef, marinate them overnight in vinegar, and use our own blend of spices,” it said.

The lifestyle products include linen, kitchenware, décor products, books, stationary, soaps, body washes, creams, and home fragrances.

South Africans can also buy Babylonstoren-branded snacks, biscuits, chocolates, sweets, nuts, dried fruit, rusks and granola, and crackers.

The online store offers country-wide delivery, which means people across the country can buy and enjoy Babylonstoren goods.

It includes various hampers, including food and drink hampers, home and garden hampers, bath and body hampers, and a wine selection.

The Babylonstoren brand is associated with world-class quality and luxury, a hallmark of Karen Roos’ creations.

Babylonstoren wine estate photos

Babylonstoren products