A year and a half after Gqeberha’s historic Richly House was gutted in a massive blaze, it stands charred, crumbling and abandoned.
Only small brickwork shows where the owner started to rebuild.
With a colourful past and a prime position on busy Cape Road, the 120-year-old building, a potential heritage gem, was being used as a bar and cannabis lounge when it burned down in March last year.
Today, the empty shell of a building is attracting thieves and vandals, who are targeting other businesses in the Richly House complex.
Concerns were raised on Friday by staff at these businesses that the building is also dangerously unstable.
With one of the walls having already partially collapsed, landing on a car, “it’s just a disaster waiting to happen”, they said.
Zonke Budaza of Zonke Budaza Attorneys adjacent to the gutted building, said the situation was untenable.
“Thieves have stripped everything they can from Richly House, and now they have turned to us,” Budaza said.
“They have already stolen two air conditioners from our premises, as well as cameras and pipes, and now they are busy stealing part of our roof.
“We urgently need the authorities to act.”
Alison Marais, an employee at the law firm, said the new owner began working on the building in December 2025.
“But then, after two to three weeks of work, he stopped, and since then he hasn’t been back, and the problems with thieves, vandals and vagrants started,” she said.
“The property was left to crumble, and thieves stripped everything they could from it, barring a lone geyser that only survives because they haven’t yet figured out how to reach it.
“In the last six weeks, the situation has escalated. The thieves are here every night, and now they’re targeting the other businesses in the complex.
“They walk up and down during the day, and one does not feel safe.
“It seems like they hide away in the abandoned building so they can come out and steal at night.”
The gutted building housed Champions Sports Bar and Club High, a cannabis lounge, retail store and nightclub, when it went up in flames.
The Richly House complex is on the south side of Cape Road between Salisbury and College avenues.
When The Herald visited the site on Thursday, the property was closed off, with one padlocked roller gate and two others on remote also locked.
The mess visible the day after last year’s fire looked like it was mostly cleaned up, and a section of brickwork, apparently new, was looking good.
But the rest still looked shaky and scorched.
Warren Jack, owner-director of M² property group on the other side of the building, said he was upset and angry about the situation.
“The building has been left in a shocking state, and we can’t get hold of the owner,” he said.
“We also can’t get any authorities to respond.
“A little while ago a portion of the building collapsed onto a staff member’s car.
“We need the authorities to do an urgent, proper inspection, and then to decide what must be done.”
Veteran property consultant Deirdre Jack of M² said multiple problems had arisen because the building was standing abandoned.
“Vagrants are living in a corner of the building, and the other day we had water spewing everywhere because they stole a pipe.”
She said the situation was now becoming increasingly dangerous.
“The bricks in the gutted building are burned through, and with the next big wind we could have another partial collapse as we’ve already had.
“It’s a disaster waiting to happen.”
Richly House was originally part of a row of terraced houses called Langford, built in 1906.
In the 1920s, it became a general nursing and maternity home.
“During World War Two it was a brothel, and after the war it became Langford Lodge Boarding House.
Richly House, as it became known, has long been associated with ghost stories.
These include one of a nun carrying a baby while uttering a chilling cry, and another of a spectre lingering in the domestic quarters, where it throttled staff.
When it burned down last year, Historical Society of Port Elizabeth chair Graham Taylor noted that the operation of the pub and cannabis lounge allegedly well after closing hours had raised the ire of residents.
He said the fire was another example of what happened as the direct or indirect consequence of poorly enforced municipal bylaws.
Bryan Wintermeyer of the Mandela Bay Heritage Trust said on Friday that Richly House was historic.
“So we really support any efforts to have it rebuilt in the correct heritage way,” he said.
“If there is anything we can do to help the owner in this regard, we would be happy to do so.”
A representative of the company that owns Richly House said there was a building application from the firm pending with the heritage authority, and he did not want to comment further at this stage.
Nelson Mandela Bay municipality spokesperson Sithembiso Soyaya said following the fire at Richly House, metro officials “became involved in assessing the implications of the damaged structure”.
“The municipality continues to monitor matters and will take appropriate regulatory steps where the applicable legal requirements are triggered,” Soyaya said.
On the crime concerns, he said the metro police played a complementary role.
“Where circumstances warrant, metro police can work with SAPS and other law enforcement structures through co-ordinated operations and hotspot interventions.
“The municipality continues to support integrated approaches involving relevant stakeholders where criminal activity has implications for surrounding communities and businesses.”
The Eastern Cape Provincial Heritage Resources Authority, which is based in KuGompo City, could not be reached on the phone.
Questions were sent via WhatsApp to an administration officer at the agency, but there was no response by the time of publication.
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