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House Sammy Marks - Hatherley
Muizenberg, Western Cape

BAKER and MASEY: Architect
Francis Edward MASEY: Design Architect
Date:1902
Type:Homestead
Status:Adaptive re-use
Street:13 Rhodesia Rd

 


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Coordinates:
34°06'18.87" S 18°28'07.95" E Alt: 10m

(BC 206.52)

Marks commissioned Herbert Baker's firm to redesign his Muizenberg holiday home. The alterations the fashionable architect made were less than modest. The plans show a double-storey house that was a far cry from the simplicity of Rhodes's nearby seaside cottage. Baker provided for three rooms downstairs for the white servants and one for the blacks; a pantry, a larder and a scullery; a large hall, a dining-room for the adults and a separate one for the children; upstairs rooms for the governess and the lady's maid, plus three for the family, besides a night nursery and a separate day nursery.

Bertha Marks was rather startled when she inspected the house in June 1902. She felt it was a great pity Baker had not sent the plans to Pretoria. There were several features which would surely displease her husband, including a porch which 'looks large enough for a castle and quite out of place'. Bertha was mistaken, for later that same year Baker was commissioned to design an imposing, seven-storey office building for the site opposite parliament Marks had assembled at such great expense.

After the house was sold by the Marks Family, it was renamed Samenkomst and subdivided into flats. The name was still visible on the one gate post until c2018 (Google Street View).

(Mendelsohn. 1991:156-157; Pryce-Lewis list 14 230).

All truncated references not fully cited below are those of Joanna Walker's original text and cited in full in the 'Bibliography' entry of the Lexicon.


Books that reference House Sammy Marks - Hatherley

Mendelsohn, Richard. 1991. Sammy Marks : the uncrowned king of the Transvaal. Cape Town: David Philip, Ohio University Press in association with Jewish Publications-South Africa. pg 156-157, 162, 253