Today Green Point, the suburb between the Cape Town CBD and Sea Point, is where the parkrun crowd gathers on Saturday mornings, families stroll the park’s leafy paths and the streets fill with gees when the stadium lights go up on game nights.
Over roughly three centuries, this patch of land has been a cattle post, a racecourse, a burial ground, a hospital precinct, a military camp and a fairly ordinary corner of the city before it became a prime address on the Atlantic Seaboard.
Each generation has built something different here. What never changed was where it sits, between the city and the sea. In property, you know what they say: location, location, location.
Long before any European ship dropped anchor, and according to the Green Point Burial Grounds Project, Khoi-San herders grazed their cattle around Table Bay and people were being buried in the sandy ground along this shore for more than 1 000 years before the Dutch arrived. Once the Dutch East India Company set up its refreshment station, this flat, windswept land west of the settlement became a cattle grazing station. The Dutch called it De Waterplaats. Nobody was building a home out here. It was the edge of town, open land you walked your cows to.
The ground was also a burial place. From around 1720 until burials were stopped in 1886, it took in slaves, sailors, soldiers, paupers, hospital patients, shipwreck victims, executed prisoners and indigenous people.
Most Capetonians had forgotten this history until 2003, when Business Day reported that builders digging foundations on a 1 200m2 site for a R90 million mixed-use development on Prestwich Street uncovered a burial ground holding hundreds of bodies buried more than 300 years ago. The development was originally called “Prestwich Place” but was later renamed The Rockwell.
The discovery halted the project for about 14 months while the archaeological and heritage process played out. Those remains now lie in the Prestwich Memorial ossuary in front of St Andrew’s Church. The developer, Ari Efstathiou of Styleprops, funded most of the memorial.
The racecourse came next. According to AL Robertson’s SA Bloodstock Breeders Review, the first recorded horse race meeting in South Africa was on Green Point Common around 1797.
After the British took the Cape in 1806, race days became the centre of the colony’s social life. According to South African History Online, in 1811 the naturalist, William Burchell, described how “vehicles of every description” came out “to enjoy the sport” and a lot of money changed hands on the betting.
Around 1830, Green Point had about 40 residents, including the Postmaster General, Robert Crozier. The Kaplan Centre at UCT records that Green Point became a municipality in 1839 and Sea Point was added in 1859; by 1875, the two together counted 1 425 people. By 1904, the figure was 8 839.
The Atlantic Seaboard grew as one connected strip of settlement creeping west from the city.The coastline was a serious hazard for shipping. The Green Point Lighthouse, first lit on 12 April 1824 by burning sperm whale oil, was the first lighthouse to be built in South Africa. It’s the red-and-white lighthouse on Beach Road at the Mouille Point end of Green Point. If you’ve ever heard locals call the lighthouse “Moaning Minnie”, you can thank the foghorn that came into operation in 1926.
According to Getaway, the horn was installed much to locals’ dismay and in 1986 it was replaced with a far quieter electric one. Neighbours objecting to new infrastructure, it turns out, is a Green Point tradition with a century behind it.
According to the South African Medical Journal, in 1818 Dr Samuel Bailey, a retired Royal Navy surgeon, opened Cape Town’s first civilian hospital here at his own expense, on land granted by the governor, Lord Charles Somerset, which is why it carried the Somerset name.
The original building later proved unsuitable and funds were raised for a replacement. The foundation stone of the New Somerset Hospital was laid in 1859 and the hospital became the first place in South Africa where clinical medicine was taught. It stands on the edge of Green Point.
Fast forward to the South African War of 1899 to 1902: Green Point Common (the historic name for the large open area, initially called De Waterplaats) served as an encampment for British troops and a camp for Boer prisoners of war.
In 1923, the City of Cape Town took ownership of the land for public recreation and sport.Today, that enormous stretch of flat land between the city and the sea holds sporting grounds, DHL Stadium (built as Cape Town Stadium for the 2010 World Cup) and the 12.5 hectare Green Point Urban Park, which turned the old golf course and sports fields into walking paths, cycling routes and indigenous gardens.
In property, anything that permanently limits how much can be built where people want to live pushes up the value of what’s there. Economists call it scarcity, and it’s the reason your neighbour’s two-bedroom sold for what it did.
The World Cup turned Green Point into a walkable link between the CBD, the Waterfront and the Sea Point promenade.
By 2018, Property24 was reporting that prices in the suburb had more than doubled in five years, with premium flats trading at R45 000/m2 to R55 000/m2.
Green Point sits at the more accessible end of Atlantic Sea-board stock. Atlantic Seaboard developer Blok has just launched its second residential development in Green Point for 2026, its fourth Green Point address.
Its CEO, Jacques van Embden, described Green Point as “one of those neighbourhoods that works on every level; it’s a strong investment node, but it’s also somewhere people want to live and raise a family”.
“Green Point has reinvented itself many times over two centuries, but where it sits has never changed.
Over time, its proximity to other spaces and use cases makes for a fascinating legacy, leading to the vibrant neighbourhood we find here today, that’s worth discovering. With TWELVEONB, alongside new homes, we wanted a building that gives something back to the street, which is why the public pocketpark at street level felt a natural fit.” A nice nod to the Green Point Common legacy.
TWELVEONB on Braemar Road is Blok’s 23rd development, following THIRTEENONUP in July. The six-storey building has 50 pet-friendly homes. It includes compact one-bedroom flats, a mix of two-bedroom and garden flats and two- and three-bedroom duplexes, priced from R3.495m.
There’s a rooftop pool, clubhouse, and 24-hour security. Completion is planned for April 2029.According to Kinesis Property’s Atlantic Seaboard H1 2026 Market Report, Green Point recorded a 31% increase in achieved flat prices per square metre in the first half of 2026, even as transaction volumes fell.
The smaller, well-located developments are increasing in demand, especially when they are hotspots within a walkable network of smaller businesses and services spread throughout — cafés, grocery stores, gyms, restaurants, parks and other everyday conveniences.
Green Point has been a cattle post, a racecourse, a graveyard, a hospital precinct, an army camp and a place people came out to for a flutter on the horses.
Every generation has found a new use for the same strip of land between the city and the Atlantic Ocean. The buildings on it will be rejuvenated and change again one day but history has shown us one thing: the value of the location won’t.