Fancourt revisited

Howdy folks..now this post might not interest many of you, but I am putting it up mainly for Oupa, as it will blast him back to another time ..

I came across THIS STORY about old ex SA cricketer Garth Le Roux, remember him, well anyway, turns out that since he no longer swings a bat, he is into the real estate business, and did some deal that got the Receiver of Revenue on his arse...but what got me going was that the property deal he is being schneid for involved my old home..FANCOURT!


Ja Oups...can you believe it hey...never a dull moment with that property!......I am a very, very lucky gurlie, because I have have had some experiences in my life that most people would never have in two lives, and I count my time at Fancourt as one of the most pleasant and beautiful highlights. Yes, it really was my home once upon a time when I was a princess. Moonie, if you ever wondered where I was after I left Springs...I was at Fancourt! I used to live there in the gate keepers lodge many years ago, when the estate was still private property, and a most magnificent old English style country seat.


At the time that I lived there, it belonged to Andrè and Helena Pieterse, and Andrè tried very hard to farm it and make it a viable enterprise. Sadly it would seem he ended up in the manure business, and lost the property in the old end...or maybe he was just clever and decided to cut his losses, and split out of SA when it turned into Mandelatopia...who knows..

Be that as it may, I will tell you something...forget about the prestige and what all of owning a possie at Fancourt today, those yuppies know nothing!..When I lived there, it was my private domain, a most beautiful farm... Now it's just another commercial enterprise to attract rich neaveau riche and a whole conglomeration of snob neighbours who like to play golf all day...not like when I was there, swiging out of the apple trees, riding our horses like maniacs through the lucern fields, or trying to catch piglets in the paddocks... I know Hansie Cronje had a house there before he died, so did other South African celebrities. But I had the privilege of living there when it was a little piece of English country side and old world life at the foot of the Outies.


THE history of Fancourt is littered with the financial heartbreak and tragedy of former owners, and can be traced back over 150 years.

Henry Fancourt White built a country house in Blanco, at the foot of the Outeniqua Mountains for his homesick English wife, in the early days of South Africa's expansion. The days of ox-wagons, pioneers and impassable mountain ranges.
The building of Blanco House, as it was named at the time, was in the style of a Cotswold Mansion, and proceeded slowly from 1859. The entire estate was modelled on that of English farms of the time, with fields divided up with stone walls and hedges, the gardens around the house were a mass of rose gardens and lily ponds, trees and creepers to remind Henry's wife of her homeland England. The dusty tracks and farm roads were lined with hedges that were so tall you couldn't see over them even if you were on horse back. Henry, a wealthy man at the time, suffered a major financial setback in 1860 and died soon after at the age of 55. Blanco House was put up for auction in 1857: "a thatched-roof double-storey building with ten airy rooms, kitchen, pantry, outbuildings and servants' rooms". Well, I remember the out buildings were beautiful stables and a tack room full of riding equipment, saddles and bridles etc, there were paddocks and stalls for cattle and calves, a dairy and pig sty's. Ducks on the lily ponds, avenues of tall trees... It was such a stunning farm.
The property was subsequently owned by Henri de Maraliac, Robert Drummond and M J Adams, the latter re-naming it Homewood in 1879. At a public auction in 1903 Homewood was sold to Ernest Montagu White, who returned to his childhood home and re-named the house Fancourt in memory of his father - Henry Fancourt White.
Ernest, or Montagu as he was known, spent the English winters at Fancourt. He made extensive improvements to the house using indigenous timber from forests in the area. Always immaculately dressed - a Panama hat and a flower in his buttonhole being his trademark- Montagu supervised his estate from a white-canopied cart drawn by a red ox whilst he painted watercolours, knotted rugs and lived the life of a country gentleman.
Sadly, in 1916 Montagu, his sister and a friend died of mushroom poisoning after enjoying a dinner of wild mushrooms picked by Montagu earlier in the day. The dining table at which the family were seated for dinner that fateful night was still part of the furnishing when the Pieterse's lived there, and Helene Pietrse told me that the family cook made a soup out of those poison mushrooms. Only one child survived, because she was sick and never had dinner with the rest of the family that night. The house stood empty for two years after the tragedy. It was said, however, that the deceased Montagu and Elizabeth continued to visit their much-loved home!

Rumours of ghosts did not deter Rubin Greer from purchasing Fancourt in 1918. He and his family, which included four daughters, brought music and laughter back to Fancourt. Legend has it that performance of the band members at their dances depended on the liquid refreshment they consumed. Too little and they refused to play, too much and they were unable to play!
A number of owners followed, and a century after Henry Fancourt White built his home it fell into disrepair due to neglect. Dr Krynauw, a brain surgeon bought Fancourt in 1960 and through his skill and his wife's excellent taste and passion for gardening, the property became a symbol of high-class living once again.
In 1969 Fancourt was sold to a property developer who went into liquidation soon after. André and Helene Pieterse became the new owners. I suppose in an attempt to make it a viable business, due to the failure as a farm, they decided to transform their country house into a hotel and golf estate, and on 23 March 1989, the Fancourt Hotel opened in grand style.
By July 1993, however, Fancourt was on the market once again. Don't know what happened that the Pieterse's couldn't cut it. In 1994 a German couple, Hasso and Sabine Plattner, bought the estate out of liquidation and set about turning it into a commercial enterprize..*sigh*...I suppose on one hand we should be grateful that it wasn't turned into a squatter camp, but on the other hand...when I look at the aerial pic of the place, I don't know it at all anymore, the golf course looks like the bombed battle fields of Flanders, just with grass growing over. Nothing of that old world English charm remains...no more hedges and stone walls...no more paddocks ...where is the dairy and the stables..and what happened to all the trees...there used to be a forest there?...eish...ke sirrah, sirrah hey..
By the way...if you have an interest in the old homesteads, stately homes and mansions, as well as the history of the wealthy land barons and Randlords of days past who built and lived in them, you will love the beautiful book by Graham Viney, 'Colonial Houses of South Africa', have a look out at the public library, you might get lucky .

With beautiful photographs by Alain Proust, as well as old photographs out of family archives, this book is not only a photo documentary, but also the story of the people who built, lived in and loved those homes. Stories that span the time from Simon Van Der Stel, through the Boer Wars and the Gold Rush. It tells about the lives and loves of pioneers and families who came out to South Africa and made a life, and built beautiful monuments to their achievement. Sadly many were pulled down to make way for new development, but still some remain. One wonders what will become of them in the future. There are many like Fancourt, that don't even feature in the book, like the Anne Bryant Gallery in East London, and so many of the homes on the seaboard between Fish Hoek and Muizemburg.

See the spooky old mansion on the cover of the book...It's in Parktown Johannesburg, and it's called Dolobran. I can tell you a personal story about that old place too...but I'll save it for another post..(-;