96 End Street

It started as a design in 1904 by Sir Herbert Baker and his partners Masey and Sloper.

The ‘S. A. College of Music’ was founded by Samuel Epstein (who was responsible for opera at His Majesty’s Theatre) for director Herr Joseph Tressi, who was 50 years old at the time. Tressi had managed theatres in both London and the US and was also an accomplished musician and organist.

The new school was to be built on what was once the tennis court of businessman Mr. Morris Rosenburg, known then as 62 End Street (later to become No.96). At the time, the stand was owned by J.J. O’Leary according to the valuation roll. Lady Farrar laid the foundation stone in January 1906. She was the wife of Randlord Sir George Farrar, and ‘had been on stage and retained her interest in things theatrical and musical all her life’. The school was completed later in 1906 under the patronage of José Dale Lace, whose husband John Dale Lace owned Lace Diamond Mine and was a director of several gold mines. Baker had designed the Lace’s house ‘Northwards’ in Parktown two years earlier, as well as the Farrar’s home ‘Bedford Court’ around the same time.

Doreen E. Grieg describes the music school as having “...unusual round flanking gables of a soft red brick with plaster embellishments like the homely Anglo-Dutch gables of Broome Park in Kent…a wider central gable is topped by the upper part of a gable borrowed from Holland…” The square, elongated ornamental top of the centre gable is similar to Welgelegen in the Cape. Overall, the design is described as ‘fanciful’ in comparison to Baker’s other commissions such as his own ‘Stonehouse’ or St. Johns’s College at the time.

Michael Keith writes about the building's significance: “Its special architectural interest lay in the soft red brick with plaster trimmings; Baker rarely used brick at all in the Transvaal. The brickwork was particularly suited to the fashionable Queen Anne style which Baker had attempted here with more deliberation than anywhere else. Round-topped gables, each surmounting symmetrical Venetian windows, flank a larger central Venetian motif, all in the same plane. The impression is given of an upper-floor recessed terrace behind the central feature, which straddles the recessed arched entrance below. The effect is enhanced by the large ornate central gable of the hall within, which looms over the flat-roofed section.”

The finishing school flourished and at its height had 20 teachers and 400 pupils including Gwendoline Farrar, George Farrar’s daughter. The building included a stage with a small concert hall for plays and operetta along with basement classrooms designed in 1909 by Aburrow & Treeby. The hall was said to hold 195 people with another 45 in the gallery.

It remained the SA College of Music until early 1913 when Herr Tressi disappeared due to financial difficulties. His clothes were found on the banks of Wemmer Pan alluding to suicide, but he was later discovered alive and well in South America. His wife tried to keep the school running after his ‘disappearance’, but it was eventually absorbed into the Farrar estate where it was later sold to become a factory. Up until 1913, it was listed as being owned by the Johannesburg Permanent Building Society.

Between May and October 1913, the building was used as a branch of the Tobias Matthay Pianoforte School.

It’s recorded that by 1918, the building was lying empty and derelict. In 1919 it was used by the SOS Boot Company for five years until 1926 when it was taken over and converted into a macaroni factory by the Sunshine Macaroni Factory.

The valuation roll confirms this:
1919-1925 registered to Rand Retreading & Vulcanising Co.
1928-1952 owned by G Bonini as a macaroni factory. In 1936 G Bonini added 4 stands directly behind the building.

In the early 1950s, the company moved to bigger premises further south in Doornfontein. At this time, it was the only unplastered brick gable building in the Transvaal.

In 1954 the building was occupied by Lob & Tonkin Ltd which was a printing company that may have also used some of the additional buildings on the stands behind.

A newspaper article from January 1960 describes the building as already abandoned. Its address in 1960 was still 62 End Street, but had changed to 96 End Street by 1967.

In 1966, satirist Adam Leslie together with theatre manager Bill Hudson acquired the building after Adam’s lease at the Intimate Theatre expired. At the time of the restoration done by Rhodes-Harrison, Hoffe and Partners, the only original parts left off the original buildings were the facade and the rooms behind it. The brick gables were likely plastered during the theatre conversion, which also added 230 seats with a restaurant and bar that recreated the music-hall ambience of London Players’ Theatre and the social life of Johannesburg in the 1890s. Percy Tucker describes the interior in his book ‘Just the Ticket: “Adam designed the interior himself, furnishing the foyer and restaurant with antiques and period posters from his personal collection, a set of old pub doors, chandeliers from an original Randlord mansion, and the brass rail form the Standard Theatre for the gallery. Restored to its former Edwardian glory and atmosphere, the building became a virtual museum of early Johannesburg, further embellished by the ceilings on which art students had been commissioned to paint scenes of nymphs and satyrs at play.”

The Adam Leslie Theatre opened on 27 August 1967 with the show Music Hall Revue, starring Adam Leslie and Joan Blake, directed and designed by Anthony Farmer. Between 1956 and 1977, his company, Adam Leslie Theatrical Productions, contributed to, devised and/or directed more than 30 revues, cabarets and music-hall productions, many put on in the Adam Leslie Theatre.

Adam Leslie closed the theatre on 31 December 1975 due ill health. He died four years later in April 1979 after his health and sight deteriorated even further after a stroke. The Stage obituary states he died after a battle with cancer.

In March 1976, the building went up for auction. The valuation rolls have no info on this period, but a deeds search shows the building was registered to Adam Leslie Prop PTY LTD in 1971 possibly up until 1980. It’s unclear what (if anything) happened at the auction, but a few months later it was rented by Stan Herson (later of Scants and Heaven nightclub fame) along with partners UK singer David Garrick, and Hector Fordyce. Garrick was an opera singer but had some chart success with pop singles in the 1960s, notably ‘Dear Mrs Applebee’ which topped the German charts and reached No.22 in the UK in 1967. After his singing career cooled he left London to live in Egypt and later moved to Johannesburg.

Hector ‘Hecky’ Fordyce was the grandson of Dorothy Susskind, who has an auditorium at WITS in the John Moffat building named after her for her fundraising efforts. Coincidentally, the Susskind home was Pellmeadow in Bedfordview, which lay east of Gillooly’s Farm next to the Farrar’s home. Dorothy also designed various rooms at the old Carlton Hotel. She also threw the final ‘party’ at the old Carlton in December 1963 - a Spring Ball to raise money for the Hope Home.

Stan and his partners planned to open a gay nightclub.

Mandy’s opened on Friday 20 August 1976. According to Stan Herson, it only lasted for two, but not longer than three months.

Mandy’s was an unlicensed gay club. This meant that it was targeted by the vice cops for both being a gay club and illegally selling alcohol.

Legend has it that the first Mandy’s club was burnt down by ‘people’ connected to the rival nightclub ‘Anaconda’ after the Mandy’s owners refused to pay protection money. The cause of the fire was never determined.

The fire-damaged building was then ‘purchased’ by Anaconda owners Zeke Kerbel and Tony Ritch. it was replaced almost a year later by the not-quite-inventively-named ‘New Mandy’s’ in July 1978.

A report of a raid appeared in the Rand Daily Mail of 8 January 1979 where ‘chairman of the committee of the New Mandy’s nightclub’ Mr Tony Ritch claimed the raid was the second one in a week. All the alcohol was seized and Tony and the staff were questioned at John Vorster Square.

Mandy’s and New Mandy’s existed during the disco era, with New Mandy’s also seeing the transition from disco to early electronic/new wave and European disco after the US anti-disco movement.

Mandy’s didn't get going until midnight and typically went on until 6am. It could accommodate 500-600 people all paying R8 cover charge and drinks for free (except mixers). This was to get around the liquor licence requirement. According to the Government Gazette, the club was granted a liquor licence on 20 June 1980, so this may have affected the later cover charge.

A new gay club called ZIPPS opened in Commissioner Street in November 1982 which eventually ended Mandy’s reign.

A newspaper listing from February 1984 indicates Mandy’s was now called Mirage. Mandy’s II was then launched on 7 December 1984 but appears to have been short-lived. It was also briefly called ‘ENDZ’ in November 1986.

IDOLS was opened on 10 December 1986 by Wally Thompson. Around 1988, David Levinson got involved with the club.

IDOLS was aimed at the ‘straight’ market and over time became one of the most popular clubs in Johannesburg. It attracted a mixture of celebrities, TV and sports personalities, as well as well-heeled northern suburbs clubbers.

Idols, in turn, was replaced by ESP in 1995.

ESP was initially started by three partners who rented the building from David Levinson. After a few months of cash flow issues, David Levinson took over.

The club famously went on until Sunday afternoon, with crowds arriving for the early morning sunrise set, and staying all day until sunset. At the time, the city was in decline, so no one bothered ESP.

ESP moved out of the neighbourhood in 2002.

In 2017, a section of the building was transformed into a daycare centre and the original brickwork of the gables was exposed for the first time in 50 years. All that remains of the original building is the façade and rooms directly behind them, exactly like when Adam Leslie took it over.

In 1992, Micheal Keith wrote: “The great irony is that a building conceived to serve artistic accomplishments should have been treated so barbarously. It is hoped that some more enlightened age will rescue this charming and unique gem from its present tarnish mockery, and restore it to its rightful position as one of Johannesburg’s most attractive buildings.”

Edited version of Marc Latilla’s piece on www.johannesburg1912.com “From finishing school to French kiss: The many lives of 96 end Street’