Page 37 - KBHA BULLETIN 3

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Rupert went insolvent at the end of 1884 and John Wesley Wells bought both lots from the

executors of his insolvent estate on 6 February 1885 for £1450. Wells also acquired the final
lot (Lot 3 0.75 morgen) from Mr W. T. Wiley on 23 October 1886, at a cost of £200. Wells

died in October 1890, but his wife Ann Deborah (née Attwell) inherited the cottage and

remained there until February 1896 when she sold the three lots to her brother James William
Attwell for £2,250. All three lots now became one holding in the form of three paragraphs in

the Title Deeds.

J. W. Attwell, of Attwell’s Baking Company, demolished ‘Botheration Cottage’ and set about

building a double-storey home which was completed in mid-1897. (Fig. 4.1.) He named it ‘Le

Rivage’ (French: thither [there lies] the beach). Regrettably in the year that ‘Le Rivage’ was
completed Attwell died of a heart attack while on holiday in London. He was at the time of

his death a Cape Town Municipal Councillor (elected 1892), a director of Attwell’s Baking

Co., and had previously been Mayor of the Cape Town Municipality (1895-96.)

On 27 June 1899 George Daniel Chapman took transfer of the property from the estate of the

late J. W. Attwell. He paid £5,450 and took a mortgage bond of £3,000 with the executors of
Attwell’s estate. Chapman did extensive alterations and additions to the house and converted

the establishment into the Le Rivage Hotel. Regrettably he was in poor health, and in his will

of 1899 he referred to his declining health and that his wife would assume responsibility for
the running of the hotel. Advertisements in the Cape Times of December 1900 indicated the

attractions on offer. (Fig. 4.2.) The name of the hotel was changed in 1903 from the Le

Rivage Hotel to the St. James Hotel, after the suburb had been so named in 1900. Chapman
died in 1903 and the entire complex, (Fig. 4.3) with an increased council valuation (from

£3,000 to £6,000 after his alterations) was transferred per his will, to his wife Mary Ann

Chapman (born Welch) on 15 April 1903.

Mary Ann Chapman operated the St. James Hotel until mid-1913 when eventually she was
sued in the Supreme Court in September 1913 by the heirs of Estate J. W. Attwell for monies

still owing on the bond of £3,000 which had been taken out with the estate in June 1899. She

was subsequently declared insolvent and the hotel was attached and sold by public auction for
£9,850 to the Opera House (Grand Parade) Restaurant Limited, a subsidiary of Pegrams (later