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The bathroom of the Khoi Khoi suite is as large as the bedroom, which is enormous. Satellite TV rises from the box in the corner
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"Into the mix go contemporary international trends – flat screen televisions (satellite TV’s 200 channels is the norm here), quality bathrooms"
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Into the mix go contemporary international trends – flat screen televisions (satellite TV’s 200 channels is the norm here), quality bathrooms with separate showers clad in local stones, the now familiar large fabric or leather bedheads, contemporary four posters and in the large suites kitchens furnished with Jamie Oliver branded equipment as well as fridges, cookers, microwaves and so on. The hotel offers a chef to service these kitchens, and dining areas comfortably seat 8 or more, whilst the smaller suites have private external dining areas on private terraces.
There are working areas too, equipped with international socket layouts for US European and South African sockets at the desk, WiFi internet that works quickly and is free (note). The desks are large and each guestroom has its own phone number and fax machine, good task lighting as well as the fully dimmable lighting circuits for most of the rooms. There are open fireplaces as well as air conditioning (I understand that hotels now have to pay a fireplace fee to Cape Town and are encouraged as to what types of woods to burn as the council and others encourage the removal of alien gum trees and oaks in favour of the native fynbos species)
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Another suite has a four poster - click to see another bedroom
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Reception leads from the front into the gardens with a guest lounge and some suites off it. Click to see the lounge of a suite
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The hotel is trying to strike a balance between honouring its historic buildings, recreating the relevant interiors as appropriate whilst creating contemporary accomodation for the Guest. By and large it is succeeding. Local Capetonian culture sometimes clashes with European expectations. Here people still smoke. With Germany now almost the last country in Europe that allows smoking inside, it can come as a shock to find that cigars really are smoked in a cigar bar (well what did you expect!)
With large areas of the US now also smoke free, it is an interesting conundrum for African hotels as to how far they want to go to conform to overseas norms to attract overseas visitors. However the hotel still gets 60% of its business from the wealthy local community. Despite the news from local agents that 18% of the top of the range houses are being sold because of emigration, the growth of a new wealthy middle class may not change this proportion.
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Steenberg
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