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Hares made plans to close the operation and build a complex of flats, Forest Hill, on the site.

Consisting of some 340 apartments, at the time it was to be the largest residential complex in
Cape Town. Amazingly, at least one of the historic lime kilns on the lowest part of the site had

survived until the 1950s. Sadly this landmark structure and its surrounds were the first portions
of the site to be demolished. They were replaced by an office block, Mill Court, which

incorporated a tunnel giving access to the brickfield. The Forest Hill complex was to be bought
by UCT in 1993 as office space and residential accommodation for students.

After four generations of excavation, the disused clay quarry was, at three acres, staggeringly

large and 150 ft deep. Enough bricks had been produced to build a paved road to Johannesburg.
An opportunity to fill the hole evolved when the construction of Settler’s Way was approved.

Settler’s Way was to be the vital link between De Waal Drive north to the city, Rhodes Drive
to the south and the N2 national road to the east. The link eliminated two playing fields donated

by the Hares to the UCT Medical School attached to Groote Schuur Hospital. As Settler’s Way

needed to be excavated to run beneath both the Main Road and the suburban railway line, a
vast amount of fill had to be removed. Conveniently, the quarry pit was situated right next to

the excavation and soon huge numbers of trucks were tipping rocks and soil into the hole.
Settler’s Way was officially opened in December 1961.

A few years prior to this the Hare brothers had been driven to go deep-sea fishing, but realized

they needed a much faster boat than Elegance to get out to the tunny-fishing waters miles south
of Cape Point. Most boats of the time travelled at 10 knots, but if the speed could be doubled

to 20 knots the angling time, based on a 12-hour day with the fish some 40 miles out to sea,
could be increased by a substantial 100%. Neil found a SA Yachting Monthly report on a new

type of fast, deep-sea sports fishing craft. Desmond liked the article and contacted the designer,
an Italian aeronautical-engineer named Renato ‘Sonny’ Levi, at his boat-yard in India. His craft

could reach 20 knots with ease as, over 14 knots, their monohedron stepped-hull design allowed

them to plane across the surface. Levi answered the Hares’ queries about the suitability of the
hull for the turbulent conditions off the Cape coast, and agreed to introduce a cockpit/fishing

platform in the stern area to make the design more suitable for deep-sea fishing.

The brothers bought Levi’s plans and decided to build the craft themselves in a shed behind

the new office block at Mowbray. Unprecedented skills had to be mastered as the plans

incorporated several unique new building techniques, including the use of epoxy resins, fibre-
glass matting and exotic woods. The hull was to be built of mahogany strips, steamed and bent