The Rivers & Bridges Estate is a 250 acre Heritage Farm in Silk Hope, Chatham Country, North Carolina and is conveniently located just off Highway 64, about a 35 minute drive from Raleigh, Asheboro and Greensboro, but a world away from the hustle and bustle of city life and we have been fortunate to call it home for nearly a decade.

Our family, Chris and I and our 5 Children, immigrated to the USA from South Africa in 2015 and we’ve spent these past 9 years reinventing ourselves, our careers and our lives, endeavoring to build a legacy for our family and becoming productive and proud citizens of this amazing country. This dream, the American Dream, became even more of a reality when we received Citizenship in March 2024. This was life-changing and has inspired us to do more, work harder and do our part to be deserving of this incredible privilege.

Starting over in our late 40’s, in a foreign land, was both exhilarating and daunting, more so, I think, for me than Chris. He would continue working in the same industry, but I would have to completely reinvent myself, leaving behind a career in the South African music industry to become a Farm Girl and full-time Mom to our 5 teenagers while figuring out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I decided to simply embrace life on the farm, keep chickens, grow vegetables and ride my horse on the beautiful trails while learning to drive on the other side of the road… and art which I still have not mastered!

I loved every minute of my quiet and uncomplicated life on the farm and even became a bit of a hermit, but I missed the music more and more every day, so when I had the privilege of designing our new home, I included a recording studio, not yet sure how it would feature in my life in the years to come. I just knew there had to be music again!

When we finally moved into our new home on the farm, the beautiful 1840’s Farmhouse and stables stood empty, as did my Kids’ bedrooms. They had all flown the coop, went off to College and made lives for themselves in far flung places such as Denver, Tampa and Dallas and I realized that I would have to figure out how to fill the empty hours if I wanted my sanity to prevail. I started writing songs again and then, without a lot of forward planning, turned the old Farmhouse and Stables into a venue. Suddenly there were no more empty hours! I was hosting weekend weddings and proms and corporate events, doing all of the planning, décor and eventually, even the flowers and prolifically writing new songs with the added bonus of having one Son that had a degree in Videography and Film Production and another with a degree in Sound Engineering and Music Production.