Jozi-on-Sea is in business

A group of business executives who live in the tranquil Garden Route town of Knysna have found a way of living at the beach while pretending to work in the big city.

You can have Johannesburg telephone numbers, a Johannesburg address and even a "virtual" secretary who reroutes incoming calls to a renovated hotel on Main Road or to wherever you happen to be.

"Nobody in Joburg can tell that I'm not in Joburg," said Andrew Wood, who founded The Directors Club in Knysna last year and plans to expand it across the continent.

The club recently signed up the town's deputy mayor.

Wood said: "I didn't do this because I wanted to make money. I needed a way to have my kids live a certain lifestyle. I'm done with Joburg and Cape Town, but at the same time people these days tend to take you seriously only if you are in Joburg. It is inherent in South African business that you need to be in Joburg."

The double-storey The Directors Club on Main Road is styled to feel and look like a top-end city company, with security access control, high-speed internet, meeting rooms and corporate suites with names such as Madiba, Gandhi and Churchill.

The plan is to open similar offices in cities throughout Africa, or wherever club members work, so they can go to the "office" wherever they are.

"They've done a bloody good job. It's very modern and friendly," said club member Catherine Russell, a web developer who recently moved to Knysna with her husband after six years abroad.

"We pay a monthly fee that allows us full access every working day. For me the main motivator is that my husband travels a lot and I work freelance, which means I'm alone at home most of the day.

"Now I have the ability to interact with other people and the feeling of going to the office and coming home. I've made a few friends and picked up a few clients," Russell said.

A shareholder of The Directors Club, Traci Wood, said the concept was already popular overseas and well suited to tech-savvy business people who rely on Skype, Wi-Fi, laptops and smartphones.

By the end of the year the management team hoped to have 15 branches in South Africa.

She said the concept was well tested in Knysna.

"Knysna is probably the worst place to do business in South Africa. If the concept has proved itself here, it can work anywhere."