Herbert Baker mansion to be razed by City of Cape Town

In its heyday, the multimillion-rand Herbert Baker mansion hosted grand parties, and a helicopter even landed on the manicured lawn when a previous owner's daughter got married there.

Today the 107-year-old building is a ruin occupied by vagrants and drug dealers. This week it became the first "problem building" slated for demolition by the City of Cape Town.

For neighbours in Somerset West, the council's move marks the end of eight years of disturbances and crime as the mansion was allowed to crumble. But for the property's registered owner, it was a nonevent.

"It is not my property anymore. So you've got the wrong person," Ferdinand Nel, of Ferndale in Johannesburg, told the Sunday Times.

The riverside house on 4,818m² in Bellona Crescent has been among the city council's top 10 problem buildings since 2014. It has heritage status, and in Baker it shares an architect with the Union Buildings.

In the council valuation carried out in 2015, it was said to be worth R5.36-million. JP Smith, the mayoral committee member for safety and security, said the council had been on Nel's case since 2011. "As I understand it, the property was sold from one owner to another but the sale was not conclusive. The title didn't change hands," he said.

Nel referred questions to his lawyer, Hannes Pretorius, who said the decline of the property stemmed from a dispute with one of Nel's former business partners.

When he moved to Johannesburg from Gordon's Bay, he left the house in the care of the partner. Several years later, when he was informed that there were problems with the tenants, he asked Pretorius to investigate.

"I had been there many times for meetings and it was an amazing house, really amazing," said the lawyer. "But when I went there after Mr Nel called me I was shocked by what I found - it was already three-quarters gone."

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Pretorius said the house, over which a bond was registered, had been put up as surety for a loan to a company that got into financial difficulties and went into liquidation.

"We lost the liquidation case in the High Court in Cape Town and went as far as seeking leave to appeal to the Constitutional Court, but we were denied permission to do so," he said.

One of Nel's neighbours, Gaynor Keays, remembers the property's glory days.

"It belonged to a local doctor," she said. "When we arrived here 20-odd years ago, his one daughter got married. A helicopter landed there, it was a beautiful wedding procession. It is a big, beautiful property."

Keays has spent R30,000 to raise her boundary wall and install razor wire. But this did not prevent thieves from climbing over and stealing her patio furniture. Another neighbour had been attacked by vagrants on Nel's property, she said.

"Stories are going around that he is going to come back and develop. But we will object," said Keays.

Another of Nel's neighbours, Heidi Weeks, moved from Johannesburg three years ago to escape the bustling city. But she has yet to find peace.

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"It has been all fun and games because every time they steal goods they come and burn cables here.

"There is a mixture of occupants - you've got homeless people and criminals. So at various times you have prostitutes, screaming, drunkenness and fighting," Weeks said.

"Property value has gone down hugely. When I bought this property the previous owners were only too glad to sell it at any price because they wanted out."

Pretorius said he assumed the liquidator would auction the property, and the buyer would be liable for paying the outstanding rates bill of R700,000 and an estimated R500,000 for demolition of what remains of the house.

Said Smith: "Our attitude is that no property owner, through his negligence, should cause the general ratepayer to cough up.

"You are not a poor indigent person, you own a very valuable asset ... which he has purposely allowed to become run-down.

"Every cost we incur there goes to his rates account," said Smith.

"He also gets this R5,000-a-month tariff, which escalates until he proceeds to do the right thing."

The city is investigating almost 1,300 cases of possible problem buildings, with Bellville, Parow, Somerset West and Wynberg said to be the most problematic areas.

According to the city, "generally, buildings at risk of becoming problem properties are those where the property owners have died or live overseas".

nombembep@sundaytimes.co.za