Page 55 - KBHA Bulletin 16

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Kalk Bay was growing fast in popularity as a holiday and health resort. John

Delbridge was typical of several prominent Wynberg businessmen who saw
opportunity in Kalk Bay and started buying up properties. (Fig. 2.23.) In 1917 he sold

to Harris Schechter – who then owned all of the land from Pratten’s Flats to the top of
Windsor Rd with the exception of two small plots at the top of the road. Not much is

known about the two top plots. The semi-derelict building that stood there had been
demolished by Emma Kleinschmidt and the two houses there today, ‘Caerleon’ and

‘St. Clair’, had been built by 1926.

The story of Harris Schechter is interesting because the plans he had passed and the

business he wanted to open caused a furore that went on for three years. The ensuing

drama brought to the surface the simmering tensions between the established fishing
community and the moneyed new arrivals. It also brought into focus the future

direction of Kalk Bay and the way the Cape Town City Council would deal with what
had been an independent municipality until 1913.

Harris Schechter was Jewish and had been born in what is now the Ukraine in 1878.

He had been a fish trader for some time in Kalk Bay and had owned a fish salting

business in Windsor Road since at least 1904. When he died in Cape Town in 1940 he
was a wealthy man with several properties in Lever, Rouxville and Rosmead roads,

Kalk Bay. He had also owned property in Fish Hoek and in other parts of Cape Town.
Schechter was a tough customer and had already been in conflict with the Divisional

Council about his fisherman’s hut at Fish Hoek when he applied to build substantial

‘general business’ premises in Windsor Road in 1919. This was rejected after
objections were raised and it was clear that he was intending to open a fish-curing

plant. Undeterred, in 1920 he submitted plans for a very big premises – to be used for
‘general business’. (Fig. 2.24.)

The building was completed in 1920 and remains virtually unaltered and is occupied
today by Bay Motors. It was after the building went up that the controversy started.

Cape Town Municipality handled things badly from the outset and Harris Schechter,
not playing by the rules of Edwardian decency perhaps, ran rings around them. When