"The ‘bearer of light’ …happens to be my father. In
fact I grew up in Yukon, it was my childhood home and a place filled with very
happy memories. I remember sliding down its grand banister, knocking on
the panels of the ballroom for ‘hidden treasure,’ I remember staring in wonder
at the carved cherubim above the bedroom doors and imagining they could speak
to me; I remember sitting on my Dad’s lap on the rock that looks like a hippo
right at the top of the mountain terrace behind the house, while he told me
stories of his time in the bush; and I remember dancing and sliding across the
Victorian tiles downstairs in my socks, and staring through the colourful
panes of glass in the front door, imagining magical multi-coloured
worlds.
My father was not a mercenary, nor an arms
manufacturer… He was a gentleman, a professional photographer and a gifted one
at that -with some of his works still exhibited in the Boston Museum of Art. He
had his springbok colours in trap (clay pigeon shooting) and made his own clay
pigeon cartridges. He also collected antique firearms (probably where the false
information about gun manufacturing originated), which he repaired to their
former glory involving careful woodwork, engraving and filigree. He was and is
still an incredibly gifted antique specialist and can fix and restore just
about anything. He had a dedicated workshop for his antique repairs in those
days, adjacent to his office upstairs. I would often go in there as a child and
watch him work in wonder. It always smelt wonderful...of linseed oil, leather
and the pine-forest smell of distilled turpentine.
I have no idea whether the information about the
window or fireplace is true or hearsay.
None of the rooms in the living quarters were ever
dark or sombre, every room in that house was filled with light and love and
beauty. The only dark room was his photographic studio, for obvious reasons.
Whilst under the ownership of my dad, the house
appeared in the covers of Habitat magazine, something surely unheard of
considering it was so garishly decorated, according to your gathered
descriptions of it? He created something truly magnificent and paid the utmost
respect to the heritage of the house. The upstairs floors were most certainly
not ‘carpeted’ in lion skins, nor were the walls adorned with the gaudy gold
icons you describe. The only room I can imagine this information to be built on
was his formal office upstairs, where we had one very special and very
beautiful hand painted antique icon that was the last thing left of our
Russian/Greek family who died in the Russian revolution. There were in fact
only two lion skins (not my favourite) but the office was carefully decorated
in the African colonial style that he had so much respect for (pictures in the
Habitat magazine I speak of). In fact, every piece of furniture, every
detail was carefully and lovingly chosen in order to match the period and style
of the house’s late Edwardian architecture.
He was there for 28 years and spent 25 of those
years restoring and reworking the sometimes irreparable damage that had been
done to the house under its previous ownership. Along with the ‘gallons of
paint stripper’ you mention; much love, sweat, blood and tears were spent
restoring Yukon. In fact if it wasn’t for him, you most certainly wouldn’t find
it in the preserved condition it is today. It would be a wreck; it’s beautiful
woodwork under layers and layers of chipping paint, its floors rotting, and its
beauty a mere memory.
Not only did he restore Yukon to her former glory,
he created an incredible terraced garden at the back of the house that, owing
to the rich soil washed down from the koppie and his incredible green fingers,
allowed Mediterranean fruits and vegetables to thrive. We had peaches, plums,
artichokes, cherries, apricots, mulberries, walnuts, avocados, greengages and
the most delicious grapes... all lovingly hand planted, pruned and looked after
by him. We ate from that terrace all year round.
Under my father’s ownership, Yukon was certainly a
place of light and it was a very sad day to see it sold before he moved away
from South Africa. It was tasteful, stately and gracious, not the dark seedy,
Russian ‘mafiosa’/criminal place you conjure up...It was
a much loved HOME.
I remember running around the house as an eleven
year old giving little goodbye kisses to inanimate structures around the house;
to wooden panels, to banister rungs, to window frames- a strange childhood fear
that the house might think that I wouldn’t miss it... it was a long and sad
goodbye and I’d love to return to see it someday."
Thank you Melody. :)
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