East, west, home’s best
TIM and Hlubi Heweitt-Coleman travel all over the world, but always love coming home to Walmer.
The busy couple, who are both successful businesspeople and parents to three children, have their work cut out for them and must maintain a fine balancing act between work and home commitments. Yet they insist they are just another normal Walmer family.
Tim, 43, is one of the directors of NOH Architects whose company has designed some of the biggest structures on the continent, including the Greenpoint Stadium in Cape Town.
Hlubi, 45, owns Spinqueen laundromat. Her clients include the Boardwalk Casino and the Garden Court. Some of her previous big contracts included doing the laundry for the rugby Sevens teams and the Springbok squad.
She won the Regional Business Achiever Award in 2010 for her entrepreneurship.
The couple, who live in Prospect Road, tied the knot at St Stephens church in New Brighton in 1993.
"We met in 1989 and started going out in 1990,” said Tim. "I was friends with Hlubi’s brother, Clive, and we would go out as a group. It was a normal boy-meets-girl story.”
He said back then being a black and white couple was unconventional, but that their relationship was not unconventional in any other sense.
Tim and Hlubi have been part of the Walmer community for 13 years and do not plan on going anywhere.
"Noah, who’s 13 now, was born a month after we moved in here. I had a home birth,” said Hlubi.
Their other two children are Litha, 15, and Mandisa, 9. Litha attends Theodor Herzl and Mandisa and Noah go to St Dominic’s Priory.
The couple spend a lot of time away from home, but they can never wait to be back.
"I have travelled around the world, but I can say that this is the most beautiful place,” said Tim.