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History: In the immediate vicinity of Somerset West lie a number of old historic farms with their Cape-Dutch homesteads which fill every lover of the Boland with nostalgia. One of these farms is Parel Vallei. Parel Vallei Road branches off the main road inside Somerset West and then turns sharply to the north in the direction of Helderberg. After making a few turns as an asphalt street, it continues as a gravelled road beneath the shady trees and then abruptly ends in front of the beautiful homestead. This huge H-shaped dwelling with its tall gables makes an over whelming impression on one when one sees it for the first time. The large lawns in front of the house, the extensive flower-garden on the left and the giant oak-trees right round, increase the splendour of the whole set-up. At a distance behind the house, stand the huge outbuildings, 100 built in perfect harmony with the homestead.
The history of Frans and Willem van der Stel is inseparably connected with this neighbourhood. On 11th March, 1699, Commissioner Daniel Hems granted this farm to Jonker Frans to become its hereditary owner. In the deed of gift the farm is defined as a certain piece of land, known as Parel Vallei, situated in the vicinity of Hottentots Holland, 103 hectares in extent, stretching to Hottentots Holland in the South East, to False Bay in the South West, to the high mountains of Stellenbosch in the North East and to the waste land near the mud-hole in the North West.
Here, not far from Willem Adriaan van der Stel’s farm, Vergelegen, Frans built himself and his wife, Johanna Wessels, a very beautiful place (“een zeer fraaie plaats”) according to the description given by the Rev. Francois Valentyn. It must be deduced from this that he had already built a comfortable home at Parel Vallei.
As a result of the violent resistance of the free burghers against the maladministration of his brother, Willem Adriaan, Frans was also ordered by the Lords Seventeen to leave the Cape in April 1708 and never to return. His wife stayed behind to manage his affairs and because Frans ardently cherished the hope that the Company would allow him to return to the Cape after a certain lapse of time, his property was not sold before 1717. In that year Pare! Vallei came into the hands of Nicolaas van den Heu vel. After his death, his wife married Olof de Wet who sold it to a certain Matthiam le Roux in 1748.
In 1763 Phihp Wouter de Vos became the owner of Parel Vallei. He farmed there for 32 years, developed the property into a show farm and won great honour for himself. On his short journey through the colony the Dutch traveller, Rear-admiral J. S. Stavorinus, singled out De Vos in this area to pay him a visit and to gather information from him about the Cape. Although he does not mention the house in the record of his travels, he has some interesting things to say about the man De Vos and about the life of the farmers at that .time. It was already dark when Stavorinus arrived at Parel Vallei from Stellenbosch and although his party consisted of five, he noticed that the housekeeping was not in the least dis rupted or inconvenienced. They were received with the greatest hospitality, a dinner of nine dishes was served and that night each one had a comfortable bed. The next day Stavorinus talked to De Vos about agriculture, com merce and public administration and be found him to be a man of sound judgment.
Apart from the fact that De Vos was a man of conse quence, one should also note that the time he occupied Parel Vallei coincided with a period of great prosperity at the Cape when the building of stately mansions was the fashion and there can be little doubt that De Vos built the huge homestead.
Philip de Vos bequeathed the farm to his son, Wouter,
but within a year he sold it to his stepbrother, Johannes Albertus Myburgh who in 1800 added the front and back gables with four pilasters, winged cornices and pediment. This date appeared on the old front gable.
The Myburghs became greatly attached to the farm and Pare1 Vallei passed from th6 one generation to the other. Unfortunately the main building was destroyed by fire early this century. It was soon restored, but to provide for rooms in the attic, the walls were slightly raised while the end gables which formerly had straight outlines now have undulating lines with pitched gables.
The outbuildings are still the original ones and the stepped gable of one of them, the hens’ nests and the graceful gateway in the ring-wall are charming.
In 1967 the present group of farm buildings was bought by Historical Homes of South Africa Ltd. in order to preserve it as a whole.
Proclaimed 1970"
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Construction Date: 18th Century
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Catalogue: Somerset West Structure Plan, No: 08, Significance Category: