Stella Buthelezi has a confession to make.
“I don’t know how to write a CV, all my life, I have practically been self-employed,” she says. Born in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, to a family of business owners, Buthelezi had a privileged upbringing, and has never had to work for someone else. Moving to Johannesburg in 1998 post marriage, along with her husband, she has been a businesswoman, her prime areas of interest being the mining and commercial property industries.
“They [the staff] call us Mr and Mrs B and we’ve got a few offices [in Johannesburg] , London, Australia, but whenever he walks [into an office] – which I always find funny – everyone gasps, and when I walk in, everyone is like ‘oh there she goes’, because I am always screaming from the door,” laughs Buthelezi.
At home too, she says she is the CEO. She professes a love for beautiful things, so evident in the aesthetics around her.
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“This house was meant to be our house,” says Buthelezi when we meet her in her sprawling golf estate home in Dainfern, Johannesburg. Buthelezi’s six-bedroom, seven-bathroom abode is a striking, modern monolith featuring a glass façade.
The glass door at the entrance leads to a grand stairway with a gurgling waterfall under it that runs as a feature throughout the house. Besides the natural acoustics, each room in this high-tech home is fitted with speakers and a sound-system. On the walls of every room are pictures of the Buthelezi family. In the entertainment area is a framed photograph of American singer-songwriter Ne-Yo posing with Buthelezi’s son on one of their overseas trips.
Buthelezi’s idea of a warm, inviting home is the alluring aroma from the kitchen.
“Even if I am not here and we are dining out, I have trained my helpers that there [should] never be a time when you open the fridge and there is no food – it is a cold house then,” she says.
Buthelezi’s favorite room in the house is the private lounge, so private it does not boast any intrusive gadgetry – no television or electronics here, only beautiful Italian furniture, lots of reading material and a view of the garden and pool.
“I love the peace and quiet, we get to read, we get to talk.”
The fancy gadgets are reserved for the private home cinema – cleverly concealed behind a door in the bar area – where the family gets together for movie nights.
There are luxe reclining couches – complete with cup holders and ‘B’ symbols on them for each member of the family – in this roomy private theatre fitted with a state-of-the-art screen and acoustics.
Buthelezi has it all but being a wife and a mother is what she says she is most proud of.
“It’s possible you can be a mother, you can be a wife and you can still be successful.”
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