Page 75 - KBHA Bulletin 16

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This last building completed the ‘restoration’ of Windsor Road and it is, to all intents

and purposes, the street seen today and as shown in the 1931 photograph. (Fig. 2.40.)

It seems that after financial difficulties in the Adams family, Christian May Adams
sold all of his remaining properties in 1930 to Max Kahn.

Given his large property interests it is surprising how Christian Adams seems to have

been forgotten in Kalk Bay. His daughter Gladys said that after the whole family had

lived in Windsor Road for many years he opened a very big wagon builder’s yard at
Steenberg. By then his son Rupert was one of the first coloured architects in South

Africa. A large and attractive house, ‘Opgaande Son’, was built on the left hand side

of Main Road just past the bridge over the Westlake River, Lakeside. Although
Christian died in 1947 the family with wives and grandchildren lived on there until

their home was expropriated and demolished in terms of the Group Areas Act.

The Essop Family

The buildings today called Fishermen’s Cove had been sold by Adams to Suleman

Essop in 1921. The buildings on the site are very old and have been occupied by
fishing families for generations. For instance, Vincent Cloete’s father was born here

in 1900. In the early 1900s several Kroomen from Sierre Leone on the West African
Coast, who worked at Simon’s Town Dockyard, lived in the lofts of these buildings.

Among other remembered families who lived here were the Pepinos, Jacobs, Hart, de

la Cruz and Schouw families. Suleman Essop was born in India and was a general
dealer in Harbour Road (probably the babi shop now Theresa’s Restaurant). He

opened a small shop in Windsor Road but mainly let out his properties to fishing
families, by then desperate to find somewhere to live in Kalk Bay. It seems conditions

were very difficult with whole families crammed into single rooms. In 1925 the

Medical Officer of health condemned the lofts as unfit for human habitation although
several people were living in them. Essop died while on holiday in India in 1941.

After passing through the hands of several Muslim owners the property was bought

by another well known character of Windsor Road, Bhaga Kalan.