Randpark Ridge’s 159-year-old home

Randburg, home to a diverse group of people, has the luxury of also being home to what is believed to be the oldest brick structure in Johannesburg.

Found nestling in all its grandeur on Frangipani Crescent, Randpark Ridge, is Hy Many House which is considered to have been built in 1860, thus making it a 159 years old. The clue to its age comes from the single remaining thick outer wall on the south side of the house, suggesting the original Boer farmhouse, usually just several simple rooms in a rectangular shape.

The house is all that is left of the original farm, and only half of the house remains. The interior of the house has been modernised, and the only remaining element of its former grandness is the attractive double-gabled, whitewashed façade. John Dale Lace, a Randlord and owner of another of Johannesburg’s famous mansions, Northwards in Parktown, extended the house in 1903, building two A-framed gables on either side of a veranda in the front, and building a pleasant courtyard around which he placed bedrooms, kitchen, and pantry. He had it as his country estate. In all it had some 25 rooms. He also built a dam, still there, now called Hy Many Dam.

However, Dale Lace lost his fortune and in 1911 he and his wife, Josephine, went to live at Boschkop for a short time. The house was taken over by Standard Bank and in 1927 businessman Tom Kelly bought the house, and extended and restored it, giving it Cape Dutch gables and changing its name to Hy Many, which refers to the home of the Kellys, originally from Ireland. The farm consisted of some 1 300 acres, with 25 acres of vegetable gardens. Kelly developed the farm considerably.

According to Kelly’s daughter Elizabeth Gemmill, her father was a keen horseman, and established an abundant stable of polo ponies on the farm. He used to ride from his farm to Langlaagte, just west of the CBD, to play polo. He also established game on the farm – wildebeest, zebra, blesbok, duiker and jackals.

The house was surrounded by veld, with a spruit flowing out of the dam, and a long tree-lined avenue running from the present day Beyers Naudé Drive to the house. Gemmill remembers a tennis court, croquet lawn, and beautiful pool that her father built. Water used to spill out of the dam into terraced gardens above the pool. She said that there was a small cemetery near to the present day Hy Many Dam, probably belonging to farmer Labuschagne but now long gone. She recalls taking tea in the gazebo, at the bottom of the garden – just the foundations of the gazebo remain.

In 1951 the house and part of its land was taken over by Gemmill, and she built a swimming pool and pool room close to the house. In 1982 she sold the property to a trust who had the land rezoned for residential development. It is said that the trust asked her to take all the windows, doors, floorboards and fireplace mantelpieces, as they were to demolish the house. She stayed in the house for another two years, and slowly dismantled and removed the fittings. After growing up in the house, and raising her children in the house, was she sad to leave? Yes, but it is said she thought perhaps it was a good thing.

A Randpark Ridge resident bought land close to Hy Many House in 1984. He became a vehement campaigner to save the house, which was threatened with demolition on a number of occasions. The trust was the first party in favour of demolition – their development plans didn’t include Hy Many House.

The resident wrote the first of several letters to the then National Monuments Council, asking them to intervene by declaring the house a national monument. He got a range of people – botanists and architects – to submit letters to validate his claims for restoration.

Various alternatives to demolition were put forward for the house – a sports club, an office park, an old age home – but all involved funding which was not forthcoming. The Randburg Council was one of those bodies which was keen to save the house but didn’t have funding for its restoration.

In the meantime, the house became run down, and by the early 1990s was occupied by squatters. Then the back section of the house was damaged in a fire. This proved to be the solution to the impasse.

The house was bought by developers in 1994 with the intention of developing a townhouse complex. They were also keen to demolish the house. After a fire occurred at the house bulldozers were brought in to demolish the damaged section, an illegal move because the house was now on the Register of Immovable Conservation-Worthy Property. What remained of the house is just under half of its original design. In 1996, 15 townhouses were built in the area immediately surrounding Hy Many House.

The inside of the house has been modernised and its steel ceilings and wooden floors have gone, as have its original fireplaces, now surrounded by modern tiles. The façade, with its matching gables and beautiful front veranda with an indented stairway and oval-shaped windows on either side, remains. It retains its iron roof, and five of its seven original jacaranda trees, probably 80 or 90 years old.

By rights it should be a national monument – the 1994 listing was the first step to becoming a national monument, but because the developers deviated from the approved site development plan, it lost its historical significance and was removed from the Register in 1998. The house is protected because it is over 60 years old, which means that approval has to be sought for any alterations made to the house. It would be preferable if the house were a declared national monument.

(Information on Hy Many House was found on the City of Johannesburg Website)