Heritage home - 8 Grove Road, Mountain view on Auction Saturday 25th May 2019. The  Kallenbach - Gandhi connection -  an opportunity to view an important Johannesburg heritage property with a Gandhi link. Auction at 12 noon and viewing between 11 am and 12 noon.

Join Kathy Munro for a walk about and a short talk on the property on site.   

This is a property that merits a blue plaque. Did you know that Gandhi lived in Mountain View on a the property owned by the architect Hermann Kallenbach; the name was: The Tents.

For some time there has been confusion about where this property was located but the research of Alkis Doucakis confirmed the location of the Kallenbach property at 8 Grove Road.

The architect Hermann Kallenbach bought land in the then remote, hillside suburb of Mountain View which lies on the ridge  above Orange Grove. Kallenbach enjoyed a close friendship  with Mohandas Gandhi and following their period of residence in Orchards at the house we know as Satyagraha House at 15 Pine Road, there followed a period of residence in tents and then a rondavel. The Mountain View property slots into the Gandhi and Kallenbach story ahead of the move to Tolstoy Farm near Lawley to the south. 

It was at 8 Grove Road, that Kallenbach erected two bell tents for his craftsmen and the Boer builder overseer who he employed. The first task was to build a modest simple rondavel, with the natural materials of the hillside site – thatch, eucalyptus timbers, koppie stone. Once Tolstoy Farm was up and running after 1910, Gandhi wanted Kallenbach to sell his Mountain View Property but Kallenbach kept the property.

In 1913 the Mountain view retreat became the Indian struggle headquarters; with the interesting story emerging of Kallenbach accompanying a group of 12 women, (6 of whom were breast feeding) to the Transvaal-Natal border with a view to courting arrest; the state declined to arrest the women and they continued on their way to Kallenbach’s Mountain View Home. Shimon Lev  writes that on 21 October, 1913  Gandhi and a number of passive resisters left Mountain View for Newcastle. ( see Shimon Lev, Soulmates, p 88-89)

The heritage home, now the jewel of this property, was built in 1923, after Kallenbach had sold the property to a Dr A Verwey. But it was the practice of Kallenbach and Kennedy (as it was at that date) that drew up the plans for the new much larger home.

• The auction is organized by Link Auctioneers and takes place at 12 noon on Saturday 25th May.
• Johannesburg Heritage Vice Chair, Kathy Munro, will be available at the property at 11h00 and at 11h30 to talk about the significance of 8 Grove Road as a heritage site. 
• RSVP via email to Kathy  on Kathy@zimstone.co.za or mail@joburgheritage.co.za.