Estate Living Digital Publication Issue 11 November 2015 | Page 18

DRYMILL BEFORE CONSTRUCTION

DRYMILL PRESENT DAY

In the beginning

ESTATE REVIEW

18

Thesen Islands lies in one of three estuaries in the
southern coast and is home to the Knysna Seahorse
and a wide ecosystem of marine organisms. Settlers
started to inhabit the area from the late 1700s and by
890 more than 1,000 people had settled in the area.
With Thesen and Company having set up shop, the
Knysna River timber industry was a thriving business.
It was only in the 1980s when Barlows (Barloworld)
purchased Thesen Island from Thesen and Company
that the decision was made to close the timber
process plant, bringing the Thesen and Company era
to an end. Barloworld quickly ascertained that with
the sensitive marine ecosystem and concerns over
chemical and air pollution, it would be impossible to
maintain the timber industry in the area.
Something else needed to be done with the island, but
there were multiple challenges to consider including a
visible 92-hectare haphazard factory site, a 10-hectare
salt marsh, contaminated soil with thousands of cubic
metres of wood waste, low-lying land an average of 1.3
metres above sea level and no existing sewer system;
and this coupled with the issue of employment.
The factory had provided employment to 800
individuals and for many this was the sole income in
the household. In 1990 Chris Mulder Associates Inc.

(CMAI) was commissioned to investigate alternative
uses for the area. The team started at ground zero.
With no management plan for the lagoon and no data
to establish the impact of current pollution sources, it
was imperative that a scientific profile of the lagoon
was recognised. Secondly, due to the historical uses of
the land, Thesen Island was a private industrial owned
entity; no residential development had previously been
considered and therefore the island had to be zoned
accordingly. Thesen Island was the first and currently
only island suitable for residential development, hence
a golden opportunity to develop prime waterfront
living as long as the environmental and zoning issues
could be resolved.

‘Slowly and painstakingly the
development concept and my vision for
the island evolved on the CMAI drawing
boards’ writes Chris Mulder.
“Thesen Islands” Published by Quivertree Publications.

Each concept was evaluated from a construction,
environmental, financial and practical stance. After
8 years of planning Concept Design Number 26
detailed 19 individual islands separated by canals and