Stockbroker and influential gold commentator Maurice Lipschitz commissioned John Albert Hoogterp to design Noordhoek in 1938. Hoogterp had established his career working with Baker on the Union Buildings, and proceeded to numerous civic projects in then Northern Rhodesia and Kenya. The enormous scale of the house reflects its owner’s wealth and aspirations. It was designed in the fashionable style of the time, Cape Dutch Revival, and set on a double Houghton acre. Lipschitz would go on to own Lenin, one of South Africa’s most successful racehorses.