Groote Schuur - Great Granary to Stately Home (Coffee-table book)

Groote Schuur - “ the great granary" is South Africa's foremost 'stately home'. Now residence of the country's political leaders, it began life, as its name suggests, as a barn in 1657, when the Dutch East India Company required a sheltered store for its grain. It progressed to a dwelling, changing its guise at the hands of different occupants until Cecil Rhodes took possession in 1893 and commissioned Herbert Baker to transform the anglicised "Grange" into a gentleman's residence. This Baker did, blending Cape-Dutch style with teak paneling and checkerboard-tiled floors. Inside are treasures collected mainly by Rhodes, but also by subsequent occupants: Flemish tapestries and Chinese porcelain; English silver and Dutch longcase clocks; Cape armoires, kists and silver; and relics from Great Zimbabwe .