received a limited schooling, Marks set great store by education and saw to it that the children were taught at home by governesses – boys until the age of eight, girls until the age of twelve and then they were sent to private schools in England. Sammy could speak 5 different languages and had a great mind for business. Marks had bought the farm Zwartkoppies to the east of Pretoria and there he began the construction of his home. The name originates from the black rock around the farm which has iron in and is by nature black rocks. This also attracts electric storms. He drew the initial plans for the house on a piece of wood and got a local builder to construct the house according to his rough sketch plan. The house is a very cold place as he built the house facing West which does not work in the Southern Hemisphere. Marks built a grand 40 odd room Victorian mansion, Zwartkoppies Hall, on the farm near Pretoria, which became well known to celebrities and dignitaries visiting South Africa. Sammy and Bertha moved into the house in 1886. Sammy had an Italian painter paint the walls on silk material so that the walls would look like they were made of silk. Beautiful patterns decorated each room of the mansion. Having the same restless energy that led to Marks's success, his wife Bertha controlled the house and its staff with ease, managing to raise nine children, breed poultry, maintain a garden, and entertain on a lavish scale. Luncheons, dinners, croquet on the lawn, tennis and billiards parties were all regular events. There was no dinner party, and no Sunday, which passed without a 5 course meal attended by 30+ guests. A staff of 13, most of whom were engaged through an agency in London, carried out the housework: parlourmaids, kitchenmaids, laundrymaids and gardeners, as well as a governess, a cook, an estate carpenter and a Scottish butler. A massive stove in the kitchen, with five ovens and 10 hot-plates, testified to the scale of the entertainment. Bertha, having married a very wealthy man, was often abroad buying décor for the mansion from France, Germany, India etc. Dolly was the youngest daughter to be born; doctors was afraid she wouldn't make it after birth as she only weighed 780grams at birth. She lived a full life and died at the