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		Villa Mayfair Mayfair, Johannesburg, Gauteng Clovis d'Origny MAINON: Architect

Date: 1898 Type: Homestead Status: Extant but altered Street: 72 9th Avenue   Click to view map Coordinates: 26°12'19.86" S 28°00'33.78" E Alt: 1727m

It was built in 1898 for a Mr. Busat, a businessman of 136 Market Street, and the application for approval of the plans was addressed to the Sanitary Board. The original plans show a dome on the tower to the left, which was recalled by a Durban woman, whose mother had been a trained nurse. According to her, the now missing dome was a landmark when, after the Anglo-Boer War, her mother cared for patients suffering from phthisis in the Villa Mayfair. A stable and the coach house farther to the left were added in 1901. The villa was extended in 1931, without impairing the original character of the house. Typically Victorian is not only Villa Mayfair's ornamentation, but also its ostentatious tower. One feels that it is far too massive and bulky for the humble house. Maybe the architect, CIO. Mainon d'Origny , had a larger villa in mind, but it was possible to erect only part of it at first. A similar construction of a tower did not occur elsewhere in the city. (Meiring et al. 1986:101) Books that reference Villa Mayfair Bawcombe, Philip & Scannell, Ted. 1973. Philip Bawcombe's Johannesburg. Johannesburg: Village Publishing. pg Meiring, Hannes, Van der Waal, G-M & Grütter, Wilhelm. 1986. Early Johannesburg, its buildings and its people. Cape Town: Human & Rousseau. pg 101