Contact Artefacts
please if you have any comments or more information regarding this record.
Menu
HomeUpfront
Now Up
Books
Towns
Structures
People
Firms
Lexicon
Strubenheim
Rosebank, Cape Town, Western Cape
Contact Artefacts | MenuHomeUpfront Now Up Books Towns Structures People Firms Lexicon | Strubenheim |
| Also called Strubenholm. A rather austere grey double-storeyed building, with its battlemented tower making a Mediaeval impression. The interior, with its stairway and fireplaces, is of considerable grandeur. It stands on the farm Zorgvliet. Commissioned by J Brooks. Became the Randlord Harry Struben's family home. Material salvaged from the demolition of the outbuildings of Coornhoop were repurposed here (Fransen 2004:94). ... Strubenholm (originally Strubenheim) must have been the largest house of its time and a foretaste of the next decade. It cost £1,000. The plan, an L-shape with a service wing attached, is very English, which is not surprising as the architect was James Brooks of London. The large reception rooms are disposed to face east and north and are protected by a verandah. In the one arm of the L, are the drawing room and morning room en-suite. Both are large rooms. The drawing room has a newly fashionable inglenook and two bay windows. The morning room is square and has a bay window. To the right of the large double-volumed entrance hall are the library, main staircase, work room, office and dining room. The English country house principle of placing the drawing and dining rooms as far apart as possible is evident here. A large billiard room, originally top lit and complete with bay windows is the principal room to the left of the main corridor. The kitchen and assorted offices are contained in the service wing. On the first floor there are six bedrooms, three dressingrooms and a schoolroom, but only one bathroom and one W.C. The servants' rooms are in the service wing, accessible by the back stairs. The style adopted for the outside of the house is a simplified version of 'old English' with steep roofs, a battlemented tower, and clusters of prominent chimneys. The windows are of a simplified single type but were originally intended to be mullioned. This is a significant concession to the local lack of suitable stone. The verandah to the lower floor is a concession to the climate. (Radford 1979:304-305). The Building was repurposed as the South African College of Music in 1925. (see Wikipedia). Strubenheim [...] faces onto the Main Road at Rosebank with battlemented turret, its once romantic aspect completely ruined by recent additions to the college buildings. Because of its present status, the house has been little altered and retains many of the original fittings. The hall and stairway are particularly magnificent; leading off the hall are the main rooms, equally grand, with marble fireplaces, decorated matchboard ceilings and still in place are the original electric light fittings. At the rear end of the hall, leading through to what were once the kitchen quarters, are double swing doors with heavy brass fittings and sand-blasted glass panels of a delicate design. The library (originally the dining-room) has an amazing fireplace of carved wood, which is one of the features of the house. Upstairs are many bedrooms of varying grandeur - today occupied by pianos, from Steinway grands to uprights of obscure make. The rooms at the front lead off the main landing, and those at the rear of the house lead from a corridor with access to the back stairway. Opposite the main staircase and up a further flight of steps is the tower room - one of the Victorian status symbols - now given over to the noisier instruments! (Picton-Seymour 1977:123). References:
|