Cape Town – Renovations are expected to take up to 18 months to complete at the seven-bedroomed mansion in Upper Constantia which was previously owned by the Gupta family, after the new owner from Europe ordered a fresh interior design.
During an exclusive interview with the Weekend Argus, Richard Huxham-Hardie, founder and director of Hardie Property, revealed that the new owner and his family have asked for the mansion to retains its original walls in order to keep with its “unique infrastructure and tradition”, but that the 8 105m² home was undergoing massive renovations which could take more than a year to complete.
When an Independent Newspapers photographer visited the premises this week, the roof had been removed as part of the renovations.
The exterior walls have been retained while the interior is being redone and reconstructed.
Huxham-Hardie revealed that the building, in Dawn Avenue, had suffered extensive damage as gaping holes in its thatched roof had let water inside the interior, which is set to be stripped.
“The renovations will take another year to 18 months,” said Huxham-Hardie.
“The buyer loved the tradition of the house. He is keeping the walls, but everything else had to be redone.
“The transfer took place in January and it was under offer for a year due to it being a complicated sale.
“The property was sold for R20 million and the buyer is from Europe and they do frequent South Africa quite a lot.
“The property is currently vacant and it was uninhabitable at the time we were selling it due to there being huge holes in the thatched roof.”
The property has been making headlines for close to two decades, after it was sold by Mark Thatcher, son of the former British premier Margaret Thatcher, to the Gupta family for R17m.
Mark Thatcher was found guilty of financing the 2004 coup attempt in Equatorial Guinea and received a four-year suspended jail sentence and fine.
The Gupta family left a trail of “controversy” as they continue to be wanted by South African authorities after fleeing the country.
In 2021, the National Prosecuting Authority obtained an interim order to secure the assets of the Gupta family, which included the mansion.
Huxham-Hardie explained that in order to allow the sale to proceed, they had to ask for the interdict to be removed, and the process took a few years before they were successful.
“It was a complicated sale. The sale was blocked at one stage, which was in the media, and we had to get the interdict lifted. The interdict was lifted and then the sale was able to go through and that took nearly a year,” he said.
“We are just four years old. I set up Hardie Property during the hard lockdown. I was previously the CEO of Knight Frank SA (Estate Agency), and I decided to set up my own agency. It has been fantastic and it has been an amazing experience.
“For us it was a great sale for an independent agency which operates in Cape Town, and we are very proud of it.
“One had to be very patient, when we were originally selling it the year before. It actually went on sale in January 2023 and transferred a year later.”
In April this year, the National Director of Public Prosecutions of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), advocate Shamila Batohi, said the entity was facing challenges in its bid to extradite Atul and Rajesh Gupta to South Africa from the United Arab Emirates to face charges, including fraud and money laundering related to state capture.
Batohi said the NPA had taken steps to request political intervention from the Presidency, and revealed that the entity had briefed the Presidency on the matter in April.
The mansion has seven bedrooms, six bathrooms, two garages, with a separate one-bedroom cottage and guard house.