For many years the famous Kat balcony, in the Cape of Good Hope Castle in Cape Town, served as an entrance to the Dutch East India Company Governor’s private premises – and it still stands today.The balcony was embellished by the sculptor, Anton Anreith, who added a painted teak portico and entrance portal in the late 1780s.
The shape of the Kat balcony has been replicated in a simple and modified form on a Paarl home that has now come up for sale.
“The balcony, extending outwards, adds a great deal of charm and character to the home,” says Lizette Joubert, franchisee for Rawson Properties in Paarl.
The 323m2 home has three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living/dining room, a study, a family room and a covered braai area. It has a garden, parking for eight vehicles and with its extra family room has the perfect facilities for a work-from-home business. The home also has an attractive swimming pool.
The list price here is R2,650,000.
Joubert said, sellers in Paarl are now coming round to accepting that the boom era prices they once enjoyed are no longer achievable – and are pricing accordingly. “The price on this home is in every way realistic and represents an extremely good buy,” she said.
Footnote: Anton Anreith was a carpenter, sculptor and woodcarver from Riegel in Germany. He arrived at the Cape as a soldier employed by the Dutch East India Company. Among the works for which he is best known are the Groote Kerk pulpit, the Groot Constantia Wine Cellar pediment, the Lioness Gateway in Gardens and some very attractive mouldings on the facade of the Koopmans de Wet Huis in central Cape Town. Anreith died, by then a very poor man, in 1822 at his Bloem Street Cape Town home.
