Swanky homes and luscious wine farms
THE most expensive house in South Africa would probably be too rich even for the people on this Rich List.
Owned by a German and his wife Veronika Zemanova — a former porn star — the R300-million Enigma mansion has 1 586m² under roof. It has velvet wallpaper, a meditation temple, a cinema, a spa, a Versace-style swimming pool and a gym. It also has several mosaics and frescoes of the voluptuous Zemanova built into the walls.
The mansion, in The Glen in Camps Bay, Cape Town, was a dream project for the couple who put it on the market almost as soon as it was finished in 2011.
Last year two offers, for R185-million and R235-million, were turned down — but the eclectic faux European castle can be rented for R150 000 a day. While the house might not be to everyone’s tastes, the neighbourhood certainly is.
Discovery boss Adrian Gore, with R4.2-billion in investments, bought his property on Clifton’s Third Beach from Primedia founder William Kirsh for R25-million.
GT Ferreira, 17th on the list with R2.7-billion invested, bought his pad down the road from Gore on Fourth Beach for R35-million.
Like Whitey Basson, Christo Wiese and Johann Rupert, Ferreira also has a wine estate — Tokara — in the Cape winelands.
Wiese sold his Lanzerac estate and now owns Lourensford; Rupert, boss of Remgro, owns L’Ormarins.
Rupert’s sister, Hanneli Rupert-Koegelenberg, owns La Motte and together they own Fredericksburg, the home of Rupert & Rothchild wines.
Basson, head of Shoprite, owns Klein DasBosch, a small wine estate, also in the Stellenbosch area.
Steinhoff boss Markus Jooste used to live in Irene in Pretoria, but he’s also moved to Stellenbosch where he rubs shoulders with the rest of the “Boere Mafia”. He and Jannie Mou- ton, 15th on the list with R3.1-billion invested, jointly own a wine farm.
Jooste also owns a house near the Karoo town of Nieuwoudtville, 350km from Cape Town.
Last week Jooste bid R4.5-million — a new South African record — for a colt at the Cape Thoroughbred Sales. But he’s good for it — at 24th on the Rich List Jooste has more than R1.7-billion invested.
Plettenberg Bay in the Eastern Cape is another favourite place of the Rich Listers.
FirstRand co-founder Laurie Dippenaar, 10th on the list with more than R5-billion invested, has built himself a house along Beachy-head Road, also known as “Millionaire’s Row”. One of Dippenaar’s neighbours is Dave King, whose R10-million mansion was put into curatorship during his 13-year-long brawl with Sars.
King capitulated and handed over more than R700-million in August and was due to take back his Plett house and his Sandhurst, Johannes- burg, home worth R70-million.
Sandhurst, Westcliff and Hyde Park are some of Johannesburg’s most expensive suburbs. Cyril Ramaphosa, 20th on the list with R2.1billion in assets, lives in the area. Up the road from him is the Saxon Hotel, the former home of Auto and General Insurance boss, Douw Steyn.
Steyn has since moved into his new R250-million palace — “Palazzo Steyn” — north of Fourways in Johannesburg. The house forms part of Steyn City, an 810ha mixed-use lifestyle estate which is still under construction.
In 2008 Lakshmi Mittal bought what was then Britain’s most expensive home for just under R2billion. Now he’s trying to sell the 12bedroom mansion in Palace Green, Kensington, but he’s preparing for a serious loss. Like most properties in the UK and Europe, significant value of Mittal’s neo-Georgian mansion was wiped out by the economic downturn. In his case, though, the value tanked by R116-million.