A haunted house, abandoned and decaying, and Durban’s oldest, most famous hotel – the Royal. What on earth do they have in common? Gavin Foster investigated
For many years now people motoring up the M4 between uMhlanga and Ballito have been intrigued by the graffiti-daubed ruins of what was once clearly a magnificent double-storey house. Word on the street is that the derelict house was haunted by the victims of some horrific bygone event, and rumours flew faster than insults in parliament. Happily, it turns out that the grand old house was the scene of many happy occasions, and no memorably sad ones.
When Gurusamy Veerasamy Naidu came out to South Africa a hundred or so years ago he was already a wealthy businessman looking for fresh opportunities. Some sources say he arrived here in the 1920s, but his great grandson Rushen Naidu recently told a newspaper reporter that his ancestor had arrived on a ship with Mahatma Gandhi – which if correct places his arrival in 1893.
GV Naidu, as he was known, was already a successful businessman in his homeland and ended up owning various properties in and around Durban, including palatial homes in Umbilo and Tongaat, as well as 100 acres of land stretching from Casuarina Beach near Tongaat across what is now the M4. In 1926 he built a single-storey house from teak with an enormous roof garden on the spot where the derelict house now stands. It had six bedrooms, two lounges, two kitchens and two bathrooms, as well as stained-glass windows, and, unusually for the day, electricity and a telephone.
It was later replaced by the current brick structure, which appears to be smaller than the wooden one, and the house that now has Beach Bums Restaurant and Bar as its nearest neighbour, was surrounded by Casuarina trees. These invasive aliens have since been removed but their legacy remains alive in the name of the area, Casuarina Beach.
Elana Geist of the North Coast Courier last year interviewed GV Naidu’s grandson, Saantha Naidu, whose family still owns the house. He told her that the property was occupied until 1994, when GV’s son, Gurusamy died and his widow moved from to the Berea. “We left the house fully furnished and when we came back a month later the furniture was gone and the stained-glass windows had been taken,” he said. From then on it went downhill as local squatters carted away anything that wasn’t screwed down, and most of what was.
So what does all this have to do with the Royal Hotel? Well, apart from them both being part of Durban’s history, they both now belong to the Naidu family.
Early in March this year the Saantha Naidu Group paid R78-million for Durban’s first and most historic hotel, bringing it back into the hands of a Durbanite after three years of ownership by Swazi property magnate Moses Motsa. Saantha, whose property group includes the Coastland hotels and various coastal resorts, is just the man to breathe some life into the ailing Royal, which goes back to January 1843, when Charles McDonald bought the land on which it still stands for £40. Two years later McDonald leased the land to John Edwards who opened the Commercial Hotel on the plot.
As Durban grew, so did the hotel, and it carried on in different forms under various names and numerous proprietors until 1860, when Queen Victoria’s son, Prince Albert, attended a dinner at the Masonic Hotel, as it was then known. The proprietor at the time, William Wood, sought and gained his permission to rename it the Royal, and so it came to be. In 1879 the hotel had a further high-profile visitor, when Napoleon Bonaparte’s great-nephew, Napoleon III, stayed there before venturing into Zululand with the British army, only to be ambushed and killed near Dundee a month or two later. Since then the Royal has hosted countless film stars, musicians and other celebrities including Queen Elizabeth II, Princess Anne, King Goodwill Zwelithini and Nelson Mandela.
Compared with the Royal’s 206 rooms on 21 storeys, coffee shops, restaurants, bars and health centre, the “House That GV Naidu Built”, as it’s fondly known to locals, has little to offer. It lacks a roof, has no doors or windows, and the electricity and plumbing fittings and fixtures have all moved to North Coast informal settlements, but it still has a soul and a history. In its day it attracted many influential and well-known people, as well as a host of Indian showbiz personalities. It was also used as a setting in a 1980s BBC television series, The Heart of the Matter.
Many people would hate to see the derelict house restored. Photographers love to use it as a backdrop, and graffiti artists – and less talented vandals – see its walls as large areas of blank canvas. Others, believing it to be haunted, would like to see it torn down, but the majority of comments on various Facebook pages seem to be made by people who would love to buy and restore it. That isn’t likely to happen. “It’s a priceless family treasure and is not for sale,” says Saantha Naidu. *