Historical St Elmo’s goes under the hammer

THE old, abandoned St Elmo’s Convent on Golf View Road in Umzumbe could celebrate its 100th birthday in new style.

That’s if the right buyer can be found at an auction to be held at the Durban Country Club on November 12.

This is according to Rainer Stenzhorn, marketing director of In2assets Property Specialists, who has been keen to take this property to their auction platform for some time.

“Not only would an auction give the sale the highest possible exposure, but it will prevent the building from falling victim to further acts of vandalism or being destroyed by the elements eventually,” he said.

The building was constructed in stages between 1918 and 1939 as a Catholic convent, used as a retreat for the nuns of the Third Order of St Dominic, as well as a remedial school for children with learning disabilities.

It was forced to close  in 1994 due to the cut in government subsidies to institutions of such a nature.

Mr Stenzhorn that the sad reality was that the government had stopped  support to this kind of religious institution, but had not ‘put a loss-stop in place to secure the rich heritage of the past’.

“A support fund should be in place to prevent property such as this from destruction,” he said.

However, he added there had been a good response from the general public and they were confident of finding an investor with the right foresight to restore the property to its former glory.

The name St Elmo is attributed to an Italian derivation of Saint Elmo or St Erasmus (circa 300 A.D.), the patron saint of the early Mediterranean sailors challenging the powers of storm and sea in small sailing vessels.

Legend records that when a blue light, dubbed St Elmo’s fire by sailors, appeared on mastheads before and after a storm, the seamen took it as a sign of Erasmus’s protection. St Elmo’s fire is a weather phenomenon in which a luminous glow is created from a sharp or pointed object in a strong electric field such as those generated by thunderstorms.

“The architecture of the church is typical of a historic floor plan of medieval times of the Catholic religion, even though the Church was only built in the last century,” Mr Stenzhorn said.

He went on to say  this unique property lends itself to be transformed into a hotel, boarding school, health care facility or even a unique holiday resort which – with the necessary renovations –  could easily match international standards.

When Herald reporters visited the colossal, rather spooky-looking building, they found it in a rather sad and ramshackle state. Almost every window was broken, most of the Oregon pine flooring had been lifted and the building itself was stripped.

Ironically, someone had written on a dusty window the words: ‘God restore this place’.