The modest, yet stately birthplace of General Jan Christiaan Smuts, is situated on Bovenplaas, the high-lying part of the farm Ongegund near Riebeeck West in the Cape, and is a worthy monument to this remarkable South African. General Smuts is remembered in history as a statesman of universal stature, a soldier, botanist and philosopher. He laid deep tracks in South African history. On an international level he became a major figure and earned the respect and admiration of other world leaders and rulers.

The extensive restoration of the Smuts House at Ongegund was undertaken for the present owners, Pretoria Portland Cement (PPC), by the Cape architect Gawie Fagan for R170 000. It took two years.

The original homestead and adjoining buildings were intact when PPC bought the farm in 1946. Over the years with the expansion of the mining industry, parts of the homestead fell into disrepair and the original manor house - an H-shaped house that stood in front of Smuts House - was demolished.

The restoration was undertaken to 'show the period of General Smuts's earliest and most formative years'. In doing this the company gave form 10 General Smuts's words at Komgha in 1935: 'I am not afraid of the dangers of the future. There is enough common sense and loyally in the soul of South Africa to see her through anything. I am a missionary of a new South Africa - the South Africa that looks forward and wants to build up a great, prosperous and united country. We must move forward in the spirit of mutual trust and confidence.'

Gawie Fagan, supported by his wife, Gwen, researched the property as it originally existed. Today the restored building is a good replica of the orderly planning and pleasant atmosphere that must have existed on the old farm where General Smuts spent his youth. Part of the complex is used to display memorabilia of Smuts's life and times.

Jan Christiaan Smuts was born of a simple farming family on May 24, 1870. He was the second of six children and lived on Bovenplaas until he was eight. At this time the family moved to the farm Klipfontein, some 20 km north of his birthplace.

The farm Ongegund was bought by General Smuts's great grandfather, Michiel Smuts in 1813. Michiel Smuts left the farm to his five sons, one of whom was Michiel Nicholaas, General Smuts's grandfather, whose son Jacobus Abraham was General Smuts's father. (In life he was member of the Cape Parliament for Malmesbury). Jacobus Abraham apparently built the house that is now known as Smuts House. The style was contemporary and the house consisted of a living room, small bedrooms and a kitchen with an oven.

The main homestead on the premises - an H-shaped gabled house - had already fallen into disrepair. The rest of the premises consisted of a separate stable (where General Smuts nearly met a premature death at age five when he fell through the loft between the mules), including a horse mill, a spacious wine cellar, a coach-house with a blacksmith's shop, which was later transformed into a foreman's house, and the long lodge. Apart from these buildings with their thatched roofs there was also the traditional chicken coop with its masonry roosts, one above the other in the clay wall, with an adjoining second coach-house, schoolroom and flat-roofed dairy which stood against the cattle kraal.

The lodge, with dung and plank floors, was painstakingly restored to the original floor plan by Gawie Fagan. The foreman's cottage near the lodge has also been restored as well as other out-houses such as a coach-house and a small schoolroom where General Smuts was given his first school lessons by his mother and where he later gave Sunday school lessons to his political opponent and future successor as Prime Minister, Dr D F Malan. The yard has been recreated as it originally appeared. Inside, Smuts House had a simple, neat and orderly living area of which every part was fully utilised. The whitewashed house consisted of a living room with the main bedroom to the left and the small bedroom where General Smuts was born, to the immediate right. A kitchen with oven to the left, was followed by a spacious pantry and larder.

The hearth, finished off with clay tiles (that had been hidden by a later layer of cement) has been restored with new tiles and the oven, of which only the foundations in the pantry and the door in the wall were found, has also been rebuilt during the recent restoration to take up most of the space in the pantry as it once did.

The ruins of the bricked-up chicken coop, coach-house, schoolroom and dairy have been carefully rebuilt with their early flat roofs, and the second coach-house and foreman's house have been strengthened. The thatched roof has been replaced.

Most of the original furniture that was used by the Smuts family has been traced and placed in the house.

In the room where General Smuts was born - the smallest room in the house - stands a trunk of wattle, a cot of yellowwood with stinkwood feet, a washstand of stinkwood and yellowwood and a Strandveld-type single bed with a skin rug.

In the master bedroom is a Cape double bed of Oregon pine. The bedding consists of hand-embroidered Victorian pillowcases with matching cover and pajama case. There are also, among others, a wagon kist of Oregon pine with the Smuts family Bible, wooden candlesticks with tallow candles, and two family portraits of General Smuts's parents.