Silver Pines

Swiss architect, Theophile Schaerer, designed this residence in 1936 for Bernard Kaumhelmer, a Rand pioneer. His daughter Ellen Hellman, the first anthropologist to study urban black communities and the first South African woman to be awarded a Ph.D., lived here. She was chairperson of the SA Institute of Race Relations and a trustee for the Defence and Aid Fund during the Treason Trials. Schaerer used Art Deco elements and contemporary materials such as raw plaster, reinforced-concrete and steel. He created a building which is prestigious and respectful of architectural tradition, with a sense of enduring stability.