The Towers Muizenberg
1987.
This extract from the Muizenberg News
January 1987 (supplied by Dave and Cynthia Privett).
Author unknown.
The Towers one of the remarkable of the
older buildings in Muizenberg , was sold in November 1986 to Mr Dimitri Livanos
of Mescalero Pty Ltd for R105 000. Natalia Chedburn and John Hutton of False Bay
real Estates handled the sale of this property.
Its story is fascinating.
Back in 1887, on 23 July, Professor James Gill, a well known educationist
entered into a deed of agreement with the Government of Cape which
eventually gave him transfer on 28 January 1889 of 8 morgen of land on the
mountain slopes west of the Main Road running through Muizenberg. The purchase price for
the whole property was 65 pounds.
Professor Gill was a well known personality of the Cape. Born in Cornwall,
England in 1831, he had a distinguished scholastic record at Cambridge, becoming
a teacher at Christ's Hospital and then, in 1860 immigrating to Graaf-Reinet in
the Cape where he became Professor of Classics at the newly formed college
there.
In 1871 he moved to Cape Town as Classics Professor at the Diocesan College (now
the University of Cape Town). He was a powerful, opininated man who did many good
things throughout his career and was involved in many controversies. He was
eventually dismissed from the College in 1882, opened a private school in
Muizenberg and became the editor of the Cape Illustrated Magazine. he was
a renowned public speaker and concerned with many societies, studies, and in
Muizenberg with the affairs of the local municipality. Gill died in Muizenberg
on 1 February 1904.
Professor Gill had subdivided his Muizenberg property . The division on which
The Towers stands is Erf 86452. It was sold for 157 pounds on 24 January 1898 to
a well to do merchant, John Henry Wood. There was an interesting condition to
the sale. No liquor was to be sold from the property unless from a first class
hotel which cost at least 3100 pounds to build. Wood in fact built a sumptuous
home on the site and lived there in considerable style until he ran into
financial difficulties. On 1 august 1909 his assigned estate was sold for 1682
pounds to the Orphan Chamber. On 1 December 1916 the Orphan Chamber sold the
property to the YWCA for 2500 pounds.
For fifty years the YWCA remained in The Towers, building a second floor
containing a row of single bedrooms. The building then was at its peak. there
were 28 bedrooms on the first floor there was a dinning room, kitchen, pantry,
office and a huge community room. There were commodious cellars at the bottom of
the building, servants quarters and a fine garden. an imposing staircase provided access
to the top two floors, the flooring was of jarrah , there was marble,
stained glass windows, and a private water supply from a running mountain stream
and a constant coming and going of people with well known wardens such as Miss
Welsh and Miss Garland running the place for the YWCA.
In 1967 the grand old building was sold to Conrad Lohr who intended to run it as
a Christian Guest House. In 1972 he sold it to the Hurter Heslinger
Organisation who planned to convert it into a home for indigent actors. In 1978
they sold it to Mark Hardwicke who in 1982 sold it to Wilhelm Kurt Reinholz.
The Towers by then was dreadfully dilapidated. It had become a variety of
"community pad"' with some very queer people finding shelter in its
rooms. A magazine, Odyssey was produced there and two of the strangest
characters in Cape Town – The Sack People made home there. The Sack
People were brother and sister, Giesbert and Dagmar Westphal who
reputedly received a monthly remittance of R400 from there father so long as
they remained out of Germany. They dressed in sacks, held strange views that the
houses must breathe, knocked holes through the walls, removed plaster from the
walls so that the walls could breathe. You could look through an entire floor of
rooms where the internal walls once were. They had long spells when they did not
wash and shorter spells when they did. They kept a dog named Thor
nicknamed the Hairless One because they shaved off all its fur so that it
could breathe.
All of these inhabitants of The Towers were eventually moved out but the
flooring was largely also removed by persons trying to find treasure. The
atmosphere of the noble old house however remained and now the new owner who has
taken over from Mr Reinholz has plans for a total restoration of the Towers to
its former handsome style.
