Liebig House - Geisterhaus
The mysterious dark shaped Liebig House becomes visible from quite a distance when one drives west on the gravel road C28. Some 50 kilometers from Windhoek the double story house is a solitary shape on a rise in the undulating savanna scenery. It is still an impressive building even though it has been left vacant and unattended for decades. Defying sun, wind, and weather the massive French-hipped roof sits on the ground floor like a sheltering cap.
The story of the Khomas Hochland (Namibian central highland area) ghost house is tied to Liebig's Extract of Meat Company (LEMCO). LEMCO established the Deutsche Farmgesellschaft (German farm association) late in 1907 and bought 210,000 hectares of land in what was then the German colony of South West Africa. The holdings were acquired for cattle breeding to ensure a steady supply of beef for the production of extract and included the farm Neu-Heusis as it is today as well as the surrounding land and several farms in other areas. Neu-Heusis became LEMCO's headquarters in the German colony, along with a production site in Fray Bentos in Uruguay, which had been operating since 1862.
Liebig House was built in 1911/1912 as the director's residence, apparently modeled on Schwerinsburg Castle in Pomerania. The house was possibly designed by the company's first director, Dr. R Hartig. He and his family were the first occupants of the magnificent building. Construction was completed within a relatively short period of time because except for the foundation of local natural stone most parts were prefabricated elements shipped in from Germany. The striking roof construction was imported as well.
The extensive reception and living rooms on the ground floor and the bedrooms on the upper floor were luxuriously furnished. As befitted a manor house at the time it even sported a winter garden (conservatory). Liebig House was one of the first farmhouses in the country to have electricity, produced by its own generator, and flush toilets. The garage complete with mechanic's pit was another much-admired novelty. The house was surrounded by a manicured garden with extensive lawns, a bubbling fountain and a pond with water lilies.
The hospitable Hartig couple arranged lavish picnics, lunches and dinners, for which Windhoek's high society gladly endured the discomfort of the bumpy journey into the Khomas Hochland. Business associates and employees of the Liebig Company were also frequent guests.
Other construction work at Neu-Heusis included staff accommodation, an office building with battlements and a fortified tower, stables, a smithy, cold storage and a barn for shearing sheep. The number of employees was so large that in 1912 a shop and a post office were opened. There was also a church and a school and even a skittle alley. There was probably no other farm in the colony as well equipped as Neu-Heusis.  |
Justus von Liebig
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The Deutsche Farmgesellschaft was disbanded after the First World War. The South African government bought the farm land from the Liebig Company in 1939 and divided it into farms that were made available mainly to new settlers from South Africa. Liebig House, which was still the director's residence, was sold to the Courtney-Clarke family in 1945. Photographer Margaret Courtney-Clarke spent her childhood there in the 1950s. In 1964 the Hoff family acquired Neu Heusis. Liebig House was part of the farm. A well-maintained smaller version of the house can be found on the grounds of St George's College in Windhoek. It was built for Dr. Hartig some 100 years ago.
Liebig House, like "Liebig's Extract of Meat Company", was named after Baron Justus von Liebig (1803-1873). The renowned German chemist is widely credited as the founder of organic and agricultural chemistry and experimental teaching. The broader public knew him as the inventor of the meat extract, a cheaper version of which was introduced in 1899 under the OXO brand. The original extract was based on a remedy that Liebig developed in 1852 for a friend's daughter who contracted cholera while staying in his house. Liebig's Extract of Meat was initially sold in small quantities by pharmacies as a tonic for severe bowel and intestinal disease.
Justus von Liebig, however, intended his meat extract as a nutrient, in particular for the poorer classes who could not afford to eat meat. Large-scale production in Uruguay, where beef was literally left to rot, eventually turned his vision into reality. In Uruguay cattle were kept for the skin, the upper layer of fat, the bones and the horns. Large quantities of meat could not be utilized because cold storage facilities were still unknown at the time. German engineer Georg Christian Giebert obtained a license from Liebig and in 1862 started producing Liebig's Extract of Meat in Fray Bentos, a new settlement on the Uruguay River. Three kilograms of meat was needed to make 100 grams of extract. The only other ingredient was salt (4%).
Three years later the success of Liebig's Extract of Meat led to the establishment of Liebig's Extract of Meat Company (LEMCO) in London. By 1882 the company in Fray Bentos was turning out 500 tons per year. Its products, sold with popular trading cards for almost a hundred years, are the predecessors of European condiments, stock cubes, and packet soups. LEMCO was acquired by the Vestey Group in 1924 and became part of Unilever in 1984.
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