If you’re going to spend millions to create the best accommodation possible, in one of South Africa’s most beautiful valleys, you’d better find the right place and the right people to do the job.
That’s exactly what entrepreneur Michael Pawlowski did when he envisaged La Clé des Montagnes – “The Key to the Mountains” – in Franschhoek.
The land dates to the 1690s, when French Huguenot Pierre Jourdaan settled here. He might be surprised to find today that a classy South African bubbly, Pierre Jourdan, is named after him and made at the Haute Cabrière vineyards just up the road.
There are no buildings left from Jourdaan’s time, but there is the original manor house, now one of the villas, built by Daniel Hugo, a descendant of those early Huguenot settlers, in 1820.
So securing this property was the first step in the grand plan to establish something beautiful and different. Beautiful because the villas are situated in arguably one of the Cape’s most gorgeous valleys amid a working wine estate and plum orchards; different because the concept of self-catering family establishments on this scale is possibly a first – other than in some of our prestigious game reserves.
Next the team was brought in – a top project manager, two of the classiest hoteliers in the business, Peggy Klement, who, among other well-known establishments, used to run Joburg’s Carlton Hotel, and partner, legendary golfing guru Larry Gould from Fancourt.
Now another stellar name from Cape Town, Sarah Ord, comes into the story to design the interiors, and finally, the team is completed with Malawians Frank and Elizabeth Shirwa, formerly from Cape Town’s prestigious Ellerman House.
La Clé has been open only since December but is already becoming known locally and internationally as a prime destination, with visitors from South Africa, Russia, Germany and England.
Gould talks of “inter-generational” travel, of families from grandparents to small children who want to go on holiday together.
If you are also an international entrepreneur, or when you win the lottery or that rich aunt leaves you a legacy, this is the place to come. It really doesn’t get better than this.
The locals are still a little wary because not too much is yet known about La Clé, and unless you’ve lived and worked in Franschhoek for at least a century, new residents, as in any close village community, are regarded with some suspicion.
As I’m not blessed with a great sense of direction, I have to ask the way back from my trip into the village to Daniel Hugo Street.
“Are you staying at La Clé?” asks my pathfinder. I feel grand and important when I answer “yes”.
“What’s it like?” he wants to know.
“Beyond gorgeous.”
The four villas – The Grange, The Manor, The Colonial and The Gallery – are all decorated in individual style from old-fashioned, warm, welcoming farmhouse, to a touch of the Oscar Wilde decadent in The Gallery. All have striking artworks, every luxury and mod-con imaginable, their own pools and gardens. The mountains provide the perfect backdrop.
The villas are only 200m from Franschhoek’s main street, although, cocooned inside, you could be light years away.
I’m staying in The Grange with a friend, so one bright morning we saunter into the village.
The Franschhoek hype doesn’t live up to the image. Admittedly it’s off-season and everything, other than stunning scenery and autumn foliage, looks sad and shabby – like a seaside town after the holidaymakers have gone.
There are some lovely art galleries and classy boutiques, superb restaurants and a great cheese shop, but these are punctuated by far too many tatty African curio shops and stalls where tourists, recently disgorged from a bus, desultorily poke about among beaded key rings, plastic handbags and mugs proclaiming “I love South Africa” (made in China).
Ah, yes, your land is beautiful, as Alan Paton has famously written, but maybe the city fathers (or citizens) are resting just a little too complacently on their laurels.
After all, one wouldn’t want Franschhoek to become just another tourist trap theme village. - Sunday Tribune