29 (12) Mackenzie Road

History of 29 Mackenzie Road

1901 (as No 12)

Ella S Wilson, 27, b Lancashire

Joan D, 1, b Cambridge

Ruth Freestone, 18, general servant, b Cambridge

1911

Richard William Mean, 39, turf accountant, b Sawston

Iva Elizabeth, 26, b Cambridge

Verna Leavis, 3, b Cambridge

Eleanor Martha Dorkings, 17, general servant, b Cambridge

1939

Thomas Page, b 1871, butcher (foreman)

Lily, b 1869, unpaid domestic duties

1970 John Horvat

HvB sent this note in 2023:

In 1980 the house was one of several owned by the great Doctor Horvat, who rented rooms to students. Famously he remarked that “marriages are made in heaven – and in my houses.” At least three marriages resulted among his tenants.

The late Zurine de Aguirre Aranzabal, niece of the President of the Basque Government, lived there in 1980, occupying the small mezzanine room next to the bathroom.

Also, tragically, in 1980 a young Nigerian student died quite unexpectedly in the first floor room overlooking the patio. He had been a friend of the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.

Occupants in 1980 were:

Henry von Blumenthal 
Jan Elzer (Amsterdam)
Monica Cernohorsky (Brazil)
Nicholas Spoerri (Switzerland)
Zurine de Aguirre (Vitoria)
Nieves Buenechea (San Sebastián)