Moerdijk studied architecture in Europe before opening a practice in Johannesburg in 1918. Married the same year, he designed this house and lived here from 1919 until he moved to Pretoria in 1924. Using local materials where possible, the design incorporates different gables and many types of wood finishes in the spirit of the Arts and Crafts tradition. He became highly influential as a leading Afrikaans architect, committed to developing a style of architecture appropriate and peculiar to South Africa. He designed numerous important buildings including the Johannesburg Station (with Gordon Leith), the Voortrekker Monument, Libertas and more than eighty Dutch Reformed Churches throughout South Africa.