The Rand Club polishes its silver to draw former plebs
In an effort to remain relevant and financially viable, the once colonial, white males only stronghold has opened its doors to non-members
Sometimes walls truly do speak. Not in the obvious way you expect to hear, but in the subtle nuances you pick up when you take the time to discover their silent voices. Standing outside the Rand Club on Loveday Street in downtown Johannesburg, you find yourself looking at the chips and marks on its outside walls that date back 115 years. It is here that in 1913, striking miners tried to storm the building that served as the playground of the mining magnates. At least 20 people died in what is today the boomed-off parking area for the Rand Club. The opulent space inside the Edwardian baroque-style building with its towering green columns, wrought iron curved banisters, magnificent chandeliers and deep maroon wall-to-wall carpeting still evoke a gentleman’s club carved out for the wealthy, where Randlords such as Cecil John Rhodes plotted and connived and passed out in the rooms upstairs after three too many. It is an opulent vestige of the who’s who of white, male SA: men of infl...
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