Airy grandeur of Emoyeni

FORMER HOME OF FINANCE MINISTER IN 1910 IS BUILT ON HIGHEST POINT OF PARKTOWN RIDGE Each week Marie-Lais looks out for the unusual, the unique, the downright quirky or just something or someone we might have had no idea about, even though we live here. W

he carpet is silky, overcast grey, the walls like a quiet cobalt sky. This is the state room up at the very top of the mansion built on the highest point of Parktown’s high ridge.

The windows look out on the land, even the Westcliff Hotel down there, and Silkaats (Mzilikazi’s) Nek in the distance.

Mzilikazi was already history when the would-be first finance minister of the Union parliament stood here, where the Honourable Dikgang Moseneke is standing, one of the most dignified figures in today’s South Arica.

“I’m lucky enough to be enjoying some of the fruits of colonialism,” he says with the barest hint of rue as he heads down the grand staircase and out the front for the task ahead in a great white marquee.

The retired Constitutional Court judge is conducting the Life Esidimeni arbitration hearing there. We are lucky enough to catch him while he is based at Emoyeni.

More luck is in store for Heather and I within and without this place of air, as it was named in Zulu.

This once-residence is now used as a conference centre, bridal venue and business meeting point.

We’re in the presence of another urbane figure, Njabulo Ntini, his clover flower buttonhole from the garden in the same colour as the mauve stripes of his shirt.

One hand in a pocket, the other gesturing airily in a faintly Edwardian way, Njabulo indicates the fine detail, the pastiche of popular eras and architectural influences that architects Leck and Emley employed here in 1905. They had just completed the Rand Club.

Many of the rooms are being used for business events today, but we saunter through others that Henry Hull, the man to be finance minister in 1910, required: sitting room; morning room, “a lighter version of the previous one”; parlour; dining rooms; drawing room; library; billiards room; mirror-lined, wood-panelled.

We burst out onto the famous north terrace, where Njabulo describes the jazz brunches open to the public here every Sunday. “There are oysters, sushi, lamb...” he describes the brunch bounty as though it was laid out before us. Did Hull vanish into thin air? There’s not much written about him, but there’s much Emoyeni airiness out here, building up in gusts for a Highveld storm.

Emoyeni, 15 Jubilee Road – 011-544-6900