Crossways Farm Village is SA’s first contemporary new rural town

What is normal? As psychologists battle it out, defining normal almost by virtue of what is considered abnormal, the goalposts keep on shifting for the rest of us. What is normal today was not normal two years ago. It’s all just a matter of perspective. What is normal to you is not normal to me. 

So what is the new normal? 

Freezing food seems to be the new normal ... as is working from home, load-shedding, washing hands, wearing masks and more.

At the moment, the new normal doesn’t seem all that great. Luckily, like Cape Town’s weather, if you don’t like it, just wait. It will soon change. The beauty of being forced into the new normal is that when things go back to the old normal, we come out of it with more understanding. 

We understand, for instance, that load-shedding is not all right. That there are other ways of generating electricity. We understand that freezing food was a necessity. But that nothing beats organic, fresh, farm produce. We get that some jobs require you to go to an office, but we’ve now seen that what was once normal, can adjust. And if you’re one of the lucky ones who can work from home, why would you not? 

So who’s to say that the new normal can’t become the norm? What if you could live off-grid, with your own water, electricity and sewerage system? With fresh produce grown on your doorstep? What if you could work from home, but you can choose where that home is? Maybe it’s on a farm, in between mountains, where the air is clean and the lifestyle active. 

Maybe the new norm is Crossways Farm Village

A vision created by the developers of Thesen Islands in Knysna, Crossways is SA’s first contemporary new rural town. The plan is to go off-grid and have its own municipality. It is safe, open and made for outdoor living. It is ideal for families and neighbours sharing the same organic vision of living off the land — even though they don’t have to farm themselves. 

A working dairy farm, Crossways provides in every way – from clean air to fresh milk, organic vegetables to internet connectivity, mountain bike and hiking trails to invisible state-of-the-art security, and exclusivity to children being children again. 

With 520ha divided into three nodes — agriculture, reservation and residential — Crossways offers 660 opportunities to invest in the new ruralism. Situated next to the Van Staden’s Bridge near Port Elizabeth and designed by award-winning CMAI Architects, it is the future of sustainable living; a future designed to be the new norm.

With plots ranging from 200m² to 8,500m², and an architectural style defined as Farmstead — the new normal needn’t be the grim version we’re living through now. 

It can be glorious — and at Crossways Farm Village, it already is. 

To find out how you can make farmstead living your new normal, visit www.crossways.co.za or contact Mariaan Coetzee on 083 788 0926 or Marisa Möller on 084 508 3282 or send them a WhatsApp. Alternatively, you can e-mail them at mariaan@crossways.co.za or marisa@crossways.co.za.

This article was paid for by Crossways Farm Village.