July 8, 2002
By Lucille Davie
THIS block rocks. A block in Hope Road, Mountain View, consists of a dozen rather wonderful stone houses, built 100 years ago using thousands of tons of rock quarried from the site.
The houses were built between 1902 and 1904 by unemployed Afrikaners returning from the Anglo Boer War, and commissioned by the Modderfontein Dynamite Company.
The company, established in Modderfontein in the 1890s, was given a monopoly to produce dynamite for use in the fast-growing mining industry on the Witwatersrand. Its headquarters are some 12km east of the houses, which it built for employees, in particular managers and engineers.
Some 1 000 tons of quartzite rocks were delivered to just one house in Hope Road, number 8, to create a fantasy of rock structures in what must be one of the most attractive houses in Johannesburg.
You can get a closer look at the houses (but not inside them) on the Westcliff and Parktown Heritage Trust tour.
The tour starts at number 22A, down the road from number 8. The house has a pleasing feel to it, shaped as three attached rondavels with thatched roofs, stone walls and wooden windows, in an adaptation of the traditional indigenous thatched hut. One end of the circle has been cut off to give each rondavel a straight wall for easier living.
Together with a well-developed garden with several fountains and ponds, and additions done with care and thought for maintaining the original stone feel of the house, it makes for a very attractive place to live.
The next house down the road, number 18A, is a double-storey house with white plaster walls, wooden windows and a thatched roof. Several outbuildings are also built of stone. Part of one of the garden walls is a dry stone wall, with no plaster to hold the stones together, an unusual feature.
Further down is number 12, which, although the house is hardly visible at the top of the long stone stairway, has magnificent gardens. The stairway is decorated with large pots, and the garden tumbles with delicious monsters, huge palms, a large jacaranda tree, tall conifers and beds of lavender, agapanthus, and a breathtaking bed of peach-coloured roses. Each level of the garden has a pathway of crunchy gravel, making the garden a visual and tactile delight.
The belle of the block
But the belle of the block in Hope Road is undoubtedly number 8, believed to have been built for the chief engineer of the dynamite company. It is an extravaganza of stone walls, stone house, stone temples, stone walkways, even a stone garden shed, made from those 1 000 tons of rock.
Front of the Rayner House, showing the classic stone construction of the neighbourhood
You can't miss it from the road - above the stone garages is a flagpole with a Portuguese flag flying (the present builder - there have been many over the years - is Portuguese), and above the garage is a wall with two green windows on either side of a green-doored balcony, with ivy creeping over the structure.
The owner, Chris Rayner, bought the house 21 years ago, and hasn't stopped renovating it - and building structures in the large garden.
The house is in stone with a green tin roof and a verandah that stretches across the front of the house, providing views of the beautiful garden, in particular a spectacular stone church in the final stages of completion.
"The church started as a greenhouse," says Rayner, but construction just didn't stop. Now it has a double-volume glass ceiling supported by a wooden framework which took two years to make, with two-metre high arched windows on three sides. It has a row of small square stained-glass windows running above the windows, and on the floor are terracotta tiles.
"We are just finishing the pulpit and hope to finish the project by June," adds Rayner.
Rayner is not sure what he wants to do with it now that it is almost finished, but is likely to rent the church out for weddings. He is planning his daughter's upcoming 21st birthday party for the church.
Behind the church is a sunken garden, with an arched pathway of wooden sleepers leading to a pool with sleeper edging. The garden is filled with mature palms, large forest ferns and ground cover, and lots of pots filled with conifers and other plants, in between stone pathways. Around every other corner is a stone statue, giving the garden a well-established, classical feel.
A walk through this garden and up the side of the house brings you to a magnificent stone stepped garden, with a stairway in the middle and water tumbling down either side into a koi pond at the bottom. The top level has four pillars, and leads into a Greek chapel.
The chapel is situated behind the house. It is small, with a central room surrounding by passageways with terracotta walls. It is unfinished and has a close but interesting feel to it. "This could be a place of refuge," says Rayner.
Behind the kitchen of the main house is another wonderful stone building with a three-layered plaster cornice. Rayner says he planned it as a studio but it has become the servants' quarters.
The house has also been altered over the years. There are now three loft rooms in the roof, skylights have been added in several rooms and where there were two bathrooms in the house, there are now six. One of the bathrooms on the stepped garden side is inside a wooden protrusion with floor to ceiling windows, with its ball and claw bath placed at the window overlooking another pool.
And in the roof Rayner has put a glass look-out, perfect to sip your sundowner in. That's if you get tired of sitting along that long verandah, overlooking this splendour. Under the verandah is a billiard room. That's not all: down a stairway off the verandah is a stone garden shed, blending perfectly into the stone surrounds next to the church.
The kitchen has seen extensive changes - "This room has had more plans than for the average house," says Rayner, with a smile.
Rayner says his favourite room in the house is the library. It's easy to see why - its walls are lined with wooden panels, with a cosy fireplace, high timber-strutted ceiling, and a French door opening out onto the verandah, which drips with orange and brown vine leaves.
Stone builders
Who has built all these stone wonders? Rayner says he has three or four full-time builders on the site, with other builders coming and going as the need demands. "It takes about two to three years to train a builder to work with stone."
Every stone has to be dressed, which means that for every week of building with stone, it takes two days to prepare the stone.
Not all stones are chipped and shaped - if the stone has a crack in it, it will be chipped, but other stones will be used as is, once cleaned. "There is a huge amount of stone chips left over, which are then carted away," explains Rayner.
Where does the inspiration come from for all this magnificence? "I've travelled a lot - visited 52 countries. There is a lot of Italian influence, but mostly it is eclectic, although I try to keep the additions within the feel of the house."
He can't place a value on the house. It doesn't matter anyway, he doesn't intend selling - there's still so much more work to be done.
Rayner recently bought the two adjoining houses, numbers 6 and 4. Both are stone houses with green iron roofs. Number 4 has two bay windows on either side of a small stoep, with irregular rectangular and square stonework. Number 6 has a gable on one side alongside a verandah. Both houses are far less grand than number 8 but are nevertheless attractive.
And guess what? There are piles of rocks in their front gardens. Wonder what Rayner has planned for these houses?
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