Gandhi's home draws flurry of potential buyers

Mahatma Gandhi's former home in a quiet Johannesburg suburb where he lived as a young lawyer has attracted a flurry of potential buyers from around the world, according to the current owner.

Nancy Ball put the property on the market after struggling to find a buyer keen to preserve its heritage as the place that India's spiritual and political icon temporarily called home.

Revealing to the public its famous former resident has seen a flurry of interest in the rare historical gem in the Orchards suburb.

"This house has become like Susan Boyle ... There's been a lot of interest from India and further," she said, referring to the Scottish singer who recently gained worldwide fame in a British television talent show.

A civil rights activist who guided India's independence movement, Gandhi arrived in South Africa in 1893 and spent his early years there as a young lawyer, where racism and prejudice shaped his role as a social activist.

Gandhi had his "political baptism" in South Africa, where he lived on-and-off for 21 years, intersected with stays in Britain and India.

The Johannesburg residence up for sale was built by his friend and confidant the architect Hermann Kallenbach, and was his home between 1908 and 1910.

Since then the house has been enlarged and modernised but Nancy, an American artist, and her South African husband made a point of maintaining the spirit of the place since their arrival in 1981.

His former home retains some original features from his stay - the garden, a well, and the metal bracket which supported the ladder leading to the small room where he slept under the thatched roof.