Inside the late Wicknell Chivayo’s R160 million Cape Town mansion
- Zimbabwean businessman Wicknell Chivayo and his wife Lucy Muteke died in a helicopter crash near Marondera on Wednesday, 30 September 2026.
- Three months earlier he had shown off a Clifton home he priced at R160 million, including the purchase and the full fit-out.
- The SAOTA-designed house runs to four floors above the Atlantic, with a penthouse suite, a lift, a gym and views toward Robben Island.
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The house Wicknell Chivayo wanted South Africa to see sits on the mountainside above Clifton, on the Atlantic Seaboard, hard against the Table Mountain Nature Reserve.
Source: Facebook
He announced the move in late June 2026, after he and his family had spent the previous weekend in the house. In posts on social media he put the cost at R160 million, about $8.7 million, and described that figure as the total spent, covering the property and everything done inside it.
He will not see the argument over that number out. Chivayo, 45, and his wife Lucy Muteke were killed on Wednesday, 30 September, when a helicopter crashed at Kudenga Farm in rural Marondera. Family spokesperson Herbert Chivayo confirmed both deaths. Police said six people were on board and that there were no survivors.
The Cape Town house is the address that outlived him online.
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Who designed the luxury Cape Town home?
It was designed by SAOTA, the Cape Town firm behind some of the country’s most expensive coastal houses, and finished by Stephen Pelerade and Pelerade Design House. Listing material described a four-bedroom, five-and-a-half-bathroom residence on four floors, served by a Kone lift. The front door is Murba wood. The floors are solid French oak, laid in wide planks. The kitchen is a Eurocasa, with a separate scullery.
The master suite was marketed as a private retreat: a dressing room, an en-suite set into an indigenous garden, and its own deck. Below it, the lower level was planned as a gym, a games area and a space for a home theatre, with provision for a wine cellar. Floor-to-ceiling glass opens the living rooms onto Table Bay. On a clear day the view runs to Robben Island.
Source: UGC
Images he posted showed the house already dressed, with designer furniture, chandeliers and fixed-beam lighting. Reports on the tour also described a play area for his children. A video posted by @zeusblxckthe1st, captioned as the R160 million Clifton buy and framed as Chivayo going head to head with Solly “MySol” Madibela, picked up hundreds of thousands of views. It is the clip now being reposted.
Source: UGC
The neighbours were part of the point. The purchase put him on the same strip as DJ Black Coffee and MySol, the mining businessman whose Nettleton Road villa had been reported at about R220 million. Clifton is one of the most expensive residential pockets in the country: Atlantic frontage, tight security, and a short run into the city. Weeks earlier Chivayo had played down comparisons with MySol and said wealth was not a competition.
What was the public's response to Wicknell's real estate flex?
After the posts went up, critics accused him of inflating the price. One claim put the buy at 26 Top Road in Fresnaye rather than Clifton, at about R93 million. Another put the purchase near R90 million or R110 million and treated the balance as fit-out. Chivayo’s own posts placed the house in Clifton and stood by R160 million as the combined spend. The deeds have not been publicly matched to either version.
It was not his only house. In 2024 he was reported to have bought a Harare mansion for about R129 million.
Three months later the tour is being watched again, this time as an inventory and the man who priced it is no longer here to answer what it cost.
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Source: Briefly News
