A beautiful old house at the corner of 1st Avenue and Heugh Road, Walmer, built in 1903 has been given a new lease of life as an upmarket restaurant called Madison On First.

At first developers planned to demolish the house to build a service station.

After opening six Barney's restaurants over the past 20 years, Gus Ferguson decided it was time to do something different. He'd always had a vision of what a really good restaurant could look like, but refused to act until he had secured the proper location.

"This is probably one of the best sites in Port Elizabeth other than the beachfront," he said.

Ferguson's involvement in the property began last year when he heard of the controversy surrounding the construction of the petrol station.

Another developer then purchased the property and began building flats on a separate part of the property.

"They split the property in two because there was no way they could alter the structure of this house," said Ferguson.

Architect Wayne Landale, who has a great interest in old buildings, jumped at the opportunity to work on the development of the house into a restaurant.

Years ago, the building had been used as a nursery. A doctor then bought it from the nurseryman and used it for many years as a surgery. By the time Ferguson took over the property, it had been empty for two years and was uninhabitable.

"One of the rooms was already being used by a vagrant," he said.

Landale has been careful to maintain the exterior and the only addition has been the large wooden deck.

"We wanted to make sure there was a facility to sit outdoors," said Ferguson.

"The first concept we had to address was how to blend the old with the new."

"The inside was just a cluster of rooms. To put it bluntly, it was like a rabbit warren," he said.

"The original timber flooring was missing in some cases; the tongue-and-groove ceiling boards were no longer refurbishable (and) electrics and plumbing had to be totally upgraded," said Landale.

The revamped interior is very modern. Ferguson said people were quite startled when they saw the massive change from the old to the new building.

"We didn't change the doors, the bottled glass or the lead glass. It cost us quite a lot having them refurbished," he said.

Dave Manning was contracted to restore the broken glass.

"There were about 10 broken panes. Replacing the bottled glass above the door sills was our most difficult task because you can't get that glass," said Ferguson.

"We were able to retain all the original doors and windows. Without Manning's help, the next best option would have been to remove them."

There were complaints when the wild fig trees housing the egrets were chopped down. Ferguson said there had been terrible odours emanating from the droppings and he couldn't expect customers to park their cars under the trees.

"It was just a cesspool in terms of stench and everything else. It's the one thing that unfortunately we had to do . . . otherwise the cars would have been covered in goo all the time," he said.

Eastern Province Herald
Publisher: I-Net Bridge
Source: I-Net Bridge