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The daily blog of Andrew Cusack: a writer, historian, web designer, and volunteer with the homeless, handicapped, and elderly. Formerly of New York, Buenos Aires, Fife, and the Western Cape; I'm now based in London. read more
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Keeromstraat 14, Kaapstad
This Cape Town house was built in 1751 for Hermanus Smuts who sold it on to Johan Jacobus Graaff, the woodworker who collaborated with South Africa’s greatest architectural duo, the sculptor Anton Anreith and the architect Louis Michel Thibault.
Thibault is believed to be responsible for the addition of the upper story and the current façade, seen above through an archway of the High Court.
The building next door was designed by the pioneering Afrikaner architect Wynand Hendrik Louw (1883-1967) for De Nederlandsche Club te Kaapstad, the city’s club for Dutch businessmen and expatriates. Louw was also the architect of the Dutch Reformed Church at Napier in the beautiful Overberg.
2 February 2016 8:45 am | Permanent Link | 3 Comments »
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2 Feb 2016 9:39 pm
Both buildings are delightful, but both photos are decades old. Can we be sure that they remain in pristine condition? And what a pleasure it would be to know that the club still flourishes as a bolt hole for “Dutch businessmen and expatriates”.
Too few left in the whole country, I imagine, much less Cape Town.
3 Feb 2016 10:34 am
Alas, while the club still exists, it began renting out the ground floor to a restaurant (“Five Flies”) which then shut in 2014. Whether they still own the building at all, I don’t know.
Cape Town still has a large expatriate community, given the high quality of life for lower costs. There is a large and well-established German school, DSK, as well as a very small French school. South Africa & Namibia are particularly popular with German retirees, who seem to appreciate a bit of sun and the outdoors.
As for the buildings today, you can see a more up-to-date view here:
https://goo.gl/maps/t3pKC4zZteL2
3 Feb 2016 9:34 pm
Still pristine, which pleases.
The High Court is very fine too, but what a monstrosity towers over them all.