The eerie reputation of the “Spook House” on Milner Road, Rondebosch, stands out among Cape Town’s ghost stories and urban legends.
Many who pass by the three-story, red-brick house have heard tales of its haunting. However, Marcus Karlien, who has lived there since he was a teenager, insists the house is “very friendly.”
A university student shared her experience with the infamous house on an Internet blog. In 2007, she and three friends visited the property illegally and tried to open the front door.
“I turned the handle and the door opened. And then it slammed shut,” she wrote.
Stories circulate about a ghostly old man wandering the house, mysterious flickering lights, and doors that slam shut on their own.
One online story even claims the house was used by a strange cult in the 1970s.
A Cape Argus team recently visited the property. Greeted by black-and-gold iron gates imported from Paris, they toured the house and found one inhabitant, Marcus Karlien, alive, well, and welcoming.
Marcus moved into the Edwardian house in 1984 at about 17 years old. His mother, Irmela, bought the 24-room house at auction for R160,000.
At the time, the house was dilapidated, with only birds living in the roof.
Marcus recalls, “During the first few years, I would lie in bed and hear noises—wood creaking. It sounded as if someone was walking around upstairs, but I knew nobody was up there.”
He has never seen ghosts, heard slamming doors, or witnessed flickering lights. He mentioned a story from the 1930s about boys dressed in sheets jumping off the balcony to scare women walking by.
The interior of the house is made primarily of Burmese teak and Oregon pine, from the staircases to the floorboards.
Marcus explained that the house’s wooden structure expands and contracts, which could explain the creaking noises.
According to Hans Fransen’s “Old Buildings of the Cape,” the house, originally called Huize Eendracht, was designed by Dutch-born architect Anthony de Witt and built in 1904 for Dutch ambassador Jac Loopuyt.
The house was commissioned to lure the ambassador’s wife to the city, as Rondebosch was mostly farmland accessed by gravel roads at the time.
The house changed hands several times and was once home to South African opera singer Cecilia Wessels, born in 1895.
When asked about the supposed cult activity in the 1970s, Marcus dismissed it with a laugh.
The Cape Argus team was shown the first two floors, now used for business, but not the private quarters upstairs.