Page 15 - KBHA BULLETIN 5

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Soon after this the old man decided to go to Cape Town and asked the chauffeur to bring the car

round. The chauffeur brought the car to the door but Mr. Williams said “Not the Ford James, I
want the Bentley”. So James went to get the keys and when he returned he found the old man

dead in the backseat of the Ford.

The “Sack People”

Professor Gill subdivided his property in the 1890s, and one division was sold to J. H. Wood

(one time mayor of Kalk Bay – Muizenberg Municipality) for £157. On this he built a sumptuous
mansion which he called ‘The Towers’ and the Park Hotel. However, he was declared insolvent

in 1909 and ‘The Towers’ was sold to the Y.W.C.A. in 1916 and remained a Christian boarding

house until 1967. The property changed hands several times after that, gradually becoming more
and more dilapidated. In 1978 it was bought by Mark Hardwicke who was not very interested in

the building, but had bought it as an investment. By this time the building was in a shocking state
and some very strange people were occupying the rooms. This was the time of hippies and

communes and the building lent itself to this style of occupation as it was divided into cubicles.

Two of the strangest characters who made their home there were a brother and sister, Giesbert

and Dagmar Westphal, who reputedly received a monthly remittance from their father as long as
they remained out of South West Africa. They dressed in sacks and were obsessed by the need

for fresh air. Everything, including houses, had to be able to breathe so they knocked holes in all
the walls so that one could look through the building from front to back and from side to side.

They also removed plaster from the walls so that the bricks could breathe.

Despite this obsession they did not keep themselves at all clean; in fact, they stank! They

adopted a mangy stray dog, which they named Thor, and rubbed her with motor oil to make her
hair grow. And when it did grow it was luxuriant! When the house was sold in 1987 they moved

to Simon’s Town and changed their mode of dress to pink sheeting. Soon after they moved

Dagmar died, some say of pneumonia and others of a miscarriage. (It was generally believed that
there was an incestuous relationship between them.) Anyway, in remorse, Giesbert forsook his

lifestyle, became a new-born Christian and joined the sect at Rhodes Memorial.

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