The owner of the Edwardian-style mansion The Aloes, in Park Drive, is not ruling out the possibility of ghosts lingering in the corridors of the three-generation family home, but she hopes its ghoulish features will attract the attention of buyers as it hits the market with a multimillion-rand price tag.
The double-storey house, which is a declared heritage site, was designed by Jones & McWilliams Architects in 1911 and completed in 1913 for Oscar Bracht.
Now, after 83 years of family ownership, it is on the market for R6.2m.
The house features Art Nouveau architecture and original fittings imported from England more than a century ago which still stand tall as permanent fixtures of the structure.
The Harraway family bought the house in 1938 and since then it has been passed down from generation to generation.
Homeowner Davina Pugh, her husband Derek and their children Michael, 27, Vicky, 25, and Alison, 20, have been living in the home for the past five years, but have decided to pack up and pursue farming in Plettenberg Bay.
Although Pugh has not experienced any apparitions of the bogey man, she did not reject the idea.
“It is on the Ghost Tour, [so] there could be ghosts. I’m sure if these walls could talk there would be many stories to tell,” Pugh said.
Walking through the house, one is taken through a time warp, with stained-glass windows, a piano room, extensive libraries, large bedrooms with fireplaces and a grand staircase just some of the feature pieces.
Pugh, having spent some of her childhood at the home, recalled stories about older family members playing croquet on the front lawn and how carriages would pass by, dropping off and collecting passengers.
She said the house was still in its original form. Her grandparents Lal and Evelyn Harraway lived in the mansion from 1938 until 1976.
Pugh’s parents Derek and Julia Harraway lived at the house from 1978 until 2017.
“I spent quite a bit of time here, growing up. It was always just home. My dad collected Africana; I think he had 27,000 books at one stage.
“He had a vivid imagination and he used to keep my kids absolutely engrossed with the most incredible stories about everything in the house.”
She said her grandfather, Lal, had many years ago salvaged the Sacramento canons with teams of oxen.
The cannon memorials are now outside Bayworld Museum and at the entrance of the Sacramento trail in Schoenmakerskop.
Mandy Grant of Engel & Völkers said because the house was declared a heritage site, it needed to be kept in its style.
“The ground is zoned for development but you can’t break the house down because it falls under heritage. You can subdivide the land in front but they are selling [it] as land and house, rather than subdivision.
“It has got medical consent, meaning that doctors could run a practice from here. You can change anything inside so it can be modernised,” Grant said.
She said there had been substantial interest in the sale from the medical fraternity.
HeraldLIVE
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