Durban - The Mansions was built in 1904 across the road from the Theatre Royal on West Street. The ground floor was reserved for shops and showrooms, while the upper three consisted of accommodation for temporary residents only. Some touring companies of actors, singers or musicians preferred to stay at the Mansions because it was convenient to the theatre.
For many years, the entire ground floor was occupied by Peach and Hafton furnishers and shopfitters. Established in about 1900, Peach and Hatton was renowned for the quality of its furniture, which was made at its factory in Smith Street and displayed in the high-ceilinged showrooms at the Mansions. The company also sold floor coverings. The first photo was taken in 1935, two years before the Theatre Royal was sold.
Thirty years later, the building began to show its age and was under threat of demolition. Fortunately, Chix Furnishers had acquired it and carefully restored it.
In Durban at Your Feet, An Alternative Guide to a City (1979), the late Barend van Niekerk describes the building in his forthright style: “Here we have the last really elaborate example of the kind of metal lacework which dominated the Durban scene at the turn of the (20th) century. This is an important building which has been carefully restored by Chix for which I forgive them the unnecessarily garish shop sign. This is a building worth preserving at all costs (as it) is really a museum for metal lacework of the Victorian era and worthy to be declared a national monument.”
Sadly, time has not been kind to the building as the recent photo shows. The upper floors still provide accommodation, but the ground floor has been divided into a series of shops. No hint of the elegant showrooms survived the partitioning. Our coastal climate and neglect have begun to ravage the filigree metal work. The Mansions survives, but not in the condition Van Niekerk would have hoped.