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

Dynevor - Rice’s Folly - White House Hotel Fish Hoek, Western Cape

Date: 1919-1920 Type: Homestead Status: Demolished 1970   Click to view large map Coordinates: 34°08'09.16" S 18°25'47.14" E Alt: 10m

Built so proudly in the summer of 1919-1920, by Mr E W Rice (of the Standard Bank) it became a talking point for more than one reason. Primarily because the huge double-storey structure was built on a sand dune and the pessimists shook their heads and predicted a gloomy picture of sinking foundations and falling walls. They were wrong, however, for those sand dunes were sturdily moulded by time and toughly bound with the roots of many hardy shrubs and creepers. Had “Dynevor” been kept in a proper state of repair it would have been as good today (in the 1970s) as it was then (in the 1920s), but with the passing of the Rice family the house (nick-named Rice’s Folly by the many who considered the building of so grand a home on a sand dune in the wind swept valley of a new seaside holiday resort, quite the most foolish thing a bank manager of all people could do!) changed hands, and with few families wanting so many huge rooms (the ballroom alone could, and later did, house a complete family) it was converted into flats. And then its first death-blow was struck when the new block of flats, Coningsby Court in 2nd Crescent was built, and the excavations bit deep into the solid sand foundations beneath the heavy structure of “The White House” (as it was then named.) The final blow came when the building suffered irreparable damage from the Tulbagh earthquake of 29 September 1969, which caused several deaths and wrecked many buildings. It was demolished in 1970. (Submitted by Margaret Gundry, Fish Hoek Valley Museum. September 2025)