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House Masureik Klerksdorp, North West Harry HANCOCK: Architect

Date: c1905 Type: Homestead Status: Extant

Mr. Masureik (a virtual tycoon among the business people of Klerksdorp in the early 1900’s) was not only a very wealthy man but also had a reputation of being a somewhat difficult person who would not accept any contradiction whatsoever to his expressed wishes. So it happened that he commissioned the services of Mr. Hancock to undertake the design of a new house (today known as Fountain Villa and being utilized as a guest house). At the conclusion of Mr. Hancock’s services, Mr. Masureik commissioned a building contractor (who he was, we have not been able to ascertain) to commence building the house and informed him that he was to STRICTLY keep to the designs handed to him since "they were drawn up by a famous architect". Shortly afterwards Mr. Masureik departed on an extended trip abroad and again his parting instructions to the contractor was to "not depart from the plans handed to you in the slightest way". Upon his return, Mr. Masureik wanted to inspect the house. After walking through the site with the contractor, upon the conclusion of his inspection of the ground floor, he wanted to continue his inspection of the second floor. The contractor then requested one of his employees to bring Mr. Masureik a ladder. Upon his indignant enquiry what the purpose of the ladder was, the polite reply from the contractor was: "Sir, you instructed me to keep to the plans in every detail. Well, I did so. No staircase to the second floor was included in those plans you handed me!" The end result was that a staircase had to be added "after the fact" so to speak, and this resulted in a relatively steep staircase not quite in vogue with the elegant design of the rest of the house. Information submitted by Bert Gaffen, Senior Historian – Klerksdorp Museum. 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.