This Cape Dutch farmhouse in Mowbray, dating back to the early 1800s, is for sale through Pam Golding Properties at R5.45m.
A Cape Dutch farmhouse dating back to the early 1800s has come onto the market in the Cape Town suburb of Mowbray.
The Richmond Road home was once part of the Bloemendal Estate, on the banks of the Liesbeek River, although the estate has long since been subdivided.
The property has been restored to exacting standards, and is now for sale through Pam Golding Properties at R5.45 million.
Bloemendal Estate originated in the 1790s out of sections of two of the Cape’s oldest and most prominent farms, Liesbeek and Valkenberg. Records show that the estate was granted to one Jan Adriaan van Schoor in 1791, and then transferred to Cornelis Mostert Junior in 1808. He is assumed to be the builder of the Bloemendal homestead and its numerous outbuildings. The estate then changed hands any number of times over the following century. By the early 1900s, it had been subdivided, and the surrounding area had been partially developed into the suburban area today known as Mowbray. The section currently for sale was subdivided as a separate residential property in 1923, and the neighbouring main portion of the estate was purchased by St George’s Grammar School. The school still occupies the main manor house and its surrounding grounds and outbuildings.
PGP’s area manager for the southern suburbs, Howard Markham, says a private survey conducted in 2004 by the Cape Heritage Consultancy identified this home as having outstanding historic, aesthetic and architectural value.
“Early plans of the Bloemendal Estate show that this particular building formed the eastern edge of a central courtyard, close to the main manor house. It had its own formal driveway and a circular landscaped island, indicating that it was an important building on the estate. It is also architecturally remarkably similar to the original manor house. Although a high wall now separates the home from the main estate, it maintains echoes of this architectural relationship, and still has a great deal of charm and historic value. In fact, it has even greater architectural and historic integrity than the main manor house, which was severely damaged by fire in 1942 and had to be partially rebuilt – whereas this property remains essentially unaltered from its original form. The survey also highlighted that, apart from its association with the Bloemendal Estate, the home also has historic value as a fine example of the typical farmhouse-style building erected in the southern suburbs in the early 1800s.”
The house is described as a thatched country cottage with an upper loft level containing two bedrooms with dormer windows. The downstairs section has three reception rooms, including a voorkamer (front room), a music room/library and an open-plan living and dining area, plus a designer kitchen finished in wood and engineered stone.
A separate two-bedroom guest cottage leads off from this area into a water-wise garden with mature oak trees, a saltwater-chlorinated swimming pool and a sheltered patio. The 1 142 m2 property has views of Devil’s Peak, and is protected by an alarm system, burglar bars and automatic gates.
“Virtually invisible from street level, it is extremely private, and you could easily forget you are in the middle of a busy suburban area. The house has been beautifully restored and still bears rich decorative detail and original features such as double-square windows, a stable-door front door with a fanlight, Yellowwood ceiling boards, beams, wooden floors and skirtings,” says Markham.
