The most famous resident of Houghton Estate is Nelson Mandela. Houghton was developed as a residential area around the turn of the 20th Century, primarily by Johannesburg Consolidated Investment Company (JCI) (Musiker and Musiker 2000:137). Historically a wealthy area it contains many large homes and properties as well as some blocks of flats, and office parks on streets close to the M1 (developed on the sites of former homes), and on Louis Botha Avenue. Houghton is architecturally varied. There are few shops in Houghton itself, apart from those in petrol stations, however the area is close to numerous commercial nodes in Johannesburg, including those in Oaklands, Norwood, Killarney, Rosebank and Sandton. There are good examples of art deco buildings (particularly some of the flats), and many of the large houses in the 1930s were good examples of the Modern style inspired by the work of Le Corbusier (Chipkin 1993). The most famous resident of Houghton Estate is Nelson Mandela.

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