Contact Artefacts please if you have any comments or more information regarding this record.

Menu Home Upfront Now Up Books Towns Structures People Firms Lexicon

Libertas Parva Stellenbosch, Western Cape

Date: 1783 (or soon after) Client: Rev Johannes Appeldoorn Type: Homestead Style: Cape Dutch Status: Extant Street: 25/33 Dorp Street (c/o Old Strand Road)   Click to view map Coordinates: 33°56'25.44" S 18°51'09.58" E Alt: 101m

Fransen (2004:179) speculates that the house dates from the time the Rev Appeldoorn added 2 morgen from the farm Oude Meulen to the 5 morgen of Libertas bought from JB Hoffman in 1771. The house is now in central Stellenbosch. Its oldest features are the four end holbol gables , unusually having the breaking of the curves into wavy lines. Jacob Haupt achieved the property in 1838 from Dirk Hamman who had bought it in 1819. Haupt created the straight-lined front gable. After a fire the windows and doors were replaced, the front door moved to the side of the voorhuis [or voorkamer (front room)] mirrored by a faux door to the opposite side. The house was bought by Historical Homes of SA in 1969/71, refurbished to an 1800 Cape Dutch condition and now occupies the offices and gallery of the Rembrandt Art Foundation. Today it houses the Rembrandt van Rijn Art Museum, Libertas Parva, No 31, is an H-shaped homestead built by Lambertus Pick in 1773, and has the only remaining pre-1790 baroque central gable in Stellenbosch. (Picton-Seymour, 1989: 66) Books that reference Libertas Parva Picton-Seymour, Désirée. 1989. Historical Buildings in South Africa. Cape Town: Struikhof Publishers. pg 66