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Stuff from Johannesburg

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The Rand Club: The Inner Sanctum of the Randlords

Founded in 1887, just months after the discovery of gold, the Rand Club is the oldest private members’ club in Johannesburg. The current building, completed in 1904, is the third iteration of the club on the same site, designed by the iconic architectural firm Leck & Emley in a Neo-Baroque style that was intended to rival the gentlemen’s clubs of London’s Pall Mall. For over a century, this was the “room where it happened.” It was here that Cecil John Rhodes, Barney Barnato, and Ernest Oppenheimer sipped whiskey and drafted the plans for the mining conglomerates that still dominate the global economy today.