In 1946 TIB vacated its Johannesburg headquarters − by then they had moved to the Volkskas building, where they had two vermin-infested offices with few amenities − and the entire staff moved to Distillers’ premises in Stellenbosch. These were still under construction, the windows unglazed. Most of the staff members were later transferred to Ou Rosenhof across the road in Dorp Street, with Rupert retaining his office at Distillers, until the new Rembrandt building was ready.
Rupert preferred the peaceful, rustic environment of the university town of Stellenbosch to the hustle and bustle of city life. In the late 1940s the town had only some 12 000 residents, 2 400 of them students. Yet it was conveniently close to Cape Town’s airport, where he could catch international flights.
The Ruperts would eventually become one of Stellenbosch’s most famous assets, in certain respects even more widely known than the university. With Rupert and Rembrandt becoming synonymous with Stellenbosch, he also turned the name of this tranquil Western Cape town into a world-famous trademark.
Their first home was in Thibault Street in the suburb of Mostertsdrift, where their eldest son − Johann Peter, after the family’s Prussian progenitor − was born in 1950. Soon afterwards they moved to no. 13, diagonally across the tree-lined street, where they would live for the rest of their marriage. Here the younger children, Anthonij Eduard and Hanneli, were born in 1952 and 1955 respectively.
The dusty pink, double-storeyed house on the bank of the Eerste River cost them £6 100 (R12 200) at a time when Rupert decided to invest in a home rather than further shares; he held that a managing director should not surround himself with debt. At the turn of the century he pointed out humorously that if he had bought shares for the same amount instead, they would have been worth R300 million by then − so the family home was perhaps the most expensive in the South Africa!
The house is situated on a large stand with a swimming pool, but it is in no way ostentatious like some of the sumptuous palaces of the mega-rich. The two silver-grey Mercedes cars are parked in a lean-to carport. Indoors there are cosy armchairs, a bookshelf reflecting the occupants’ catholic tastes, antique furniture, Persian rugs and paintings by well-known artists collected over many years. The atmosphere radiates relaxed comfort and the Ruperts’ sober lifestyle.
To have lived in the same house for such a long time is something they have in common with some of the world’s top entrepreneurs. The American billionaire Warren Buffet, ranked second on the 2004 Forbes list of 500 richest people in the world below Bill Gates of Microsoft, has spent decades in the same grey stucco house in Omaha, Nebraska. Known as the ‘Oracle of Omaha’, Buffet is also the only American businessman Rupert met who had studied Rembrandt’s business in depth. Another renowned entrepreneur, Henry Ford of Model-T fame, lived in the house he had built for him in Dearborn, close to his automobile factory in Detroit, Michigan, from 1915 until his death in 1947.
In Thibault Street, the Ruperts maintained their simple, sober lifestyle. ‘What do you do with a larger and larger and larger house?’ he said 50 years later. ‘What do you do with these things? It’s boring. It doesn’t actually make me happy. I need to help create.’2
Huberte made their home a peaceful haven from the stressful world of business. She kept a close eye on the family’s diet, establishing a vegetable garden and serving fresh fruit and vegetables. Lunch was the main meal of the day. During their school days the children often came home to salads − grated carrots and apples soaked in orange juice, also tomatoes and pineapple. Annie Booysen, the family cook for over 40 years, conjured up plain, tasty dishes. Thick vegetable broths were often served for supper. Huberte believed it kept Rupert healthy and made him sleep well. He never had stomach ulcers. They rarely dined out and steered clear of formal functions whenever they could. Huberte kept up her interest in music and the theatre and attended performances with friends.
When the Ruperts first settled in Stellenbosch, the town was still mostly dominated by academics. In the somewhat cliquish community the newcomers were initially treated like outsiders and late arrivals, except by a few shareholders who became good friends. One of their first friends was Prof. James Yeats of the university’s law faculty, a former Rhodes scholar who had co-authored some of the most important Afrikaans law books with Prof. JC de Wet at Stellenbosch. Yeats, who also became a director of the Rembrandt Group, took them under his wing. He introduced the Ruperts to academics and other residents and they were gradually drawn into the community.
A number of academics with whom the Ruperts enjoyed intellectual conversations provided stimulating company. Among those who lived close by in Mostertsdrift were CGW Schumann, the economist who would later describe Rupert as ‘a practical dreamer and a realistic idealist’; Len Verwoerd, agriculturist brother of HF Verwoerd (ideologically poles apart from his brother); the literary scholar FEJ (Fransie) Malherbe, whose brother Prof. F du T Malherbe had been Rupert’s chemistry lecturer in Pretoria; and the composer Arnold van Wyk. Dirk Hertzog and his wife lived nearby at Rus Roes in Tuin Street, across the road from the poet Dirk Opperman and his wife Marié, friends of both the Ruperts and the Hertzogs, whose house was at no. 3 Thibault Street. Although Rupert’s brothers Koos and Jan spent much time overseas, they also made Stellenbosch their base and lived in the same area. In later years Mostertsdrift and specifically Thibault Street became less affordable to academics, and by the turn of the century the residents of the suburb were mostly business people and medical doctors.
As a location for the new cigarette factory Rupert chose an old mill in Paarl, a town in the Berg River valley. He thought the climate ideal for maturing tobacco and manufacturing cigarettes. It was to this valley that Jan van Riebeeck, governor of the Dutch East India Company, had sent an expedition in October 1657. Two hundred and ninety years later Rupert came to Paarl as a new pioneer. Like Van Riebeeck he had a dream, but with it the determination and initiative to turn it into reality.
Rembrandt’s starting capital was a modest £125 000. There were also other problems. Hennie van Zyl, who had succeeded Hoogenhout as manager of Voorbrand, left in 1946 to join the leather-suitcase company SAPRO in Port Elizabeth. Like Hoogenhout, he returned to Rembrandt two years later when his business at SAPRO failed. There were no recriminations in either case. In the interim, however, the only suitable person Rupert could find to take over at Voorbrand was his own brother Jan, newly qualified as a lawyer and working for their father John Rupert. Jan agreed to join Rembrandt and organised the move of the cigarette factory in Johannesburg to Paarl. He crossed over to the new company at the time of the merger, when Voorbrand’s production assets and brand names were transferred to Rembrandt for a sum of £70 000. Voorbrand shareholders obtained a share in Rembrandt, which still continued to process pipe tobacco. Rupert himself was authorised to apply for shares of £70 000 in Rembrandt.
The other co-founder of the group, Dirk Hertzog, was in the early stages still a partner at the law firm Couzyn, Hertzog & Horak in Pretoria. He joined the group in Stellenbosch, where his astute legal brain was an asset, but after a year he wanted to return to Pretoria. An asthmatic with a heart defect, he believed he needed a lot of exercise and the Cape weather interfered with his tennis. His wife Lorraine (née De la Harpe) also found it hard to settle into the new surroundings and missed her friends in the north. After a few years in Pretoria, however, the couple returned to Stellenbosch and Hertzog devoted the rest of his career to Rembrandt. Rupert observed in his founder’s notes that Hertzog, who had taken up golf in the meantime, was rarely available outside of office hours. Hertzog’s own view was that after devoting a full day’s energy and concentration to business, he did not want to be disturbed at home or on the golf course. As a result of a car accident in 1968 Hertzog’s wife became an invalid, which also made it practically difficult for him to travel overseas.
Hertzog had tried to interest Rupert in golf, but after a few attempts Rupert declared frankly that he was only making a fool of himself on the golf course. Years later his older son Johann would become an enthusiastic golfer. Johann Rupert counts golf heroes such as Ernie Els and Trevor Immelman among