Red Carnation Hotels

HISTORY

The first residents of this part of the world were the San and the Koi.

When the Dutch settlers arrived in Cape Town in 1652, the Twelve Apostles Mountains behind the hotel were covered in forests and were home to lions, leopard and antelope.

The Khoi tribe lived on the slopes of the Twelve Apostles but were decimated by measles and smallpox and then restricted to the Oudekraal area.

The Het Huis te Kraaiestein (many spelling variations), a Dutch East Indian ship sinks on 27 May 1698 en route to Holland. The wreck is 100metres offshore at an average depth of 9metres. The wreck is not easy to find since most of it is buried under sand, however 3 anchors and a dozen iron cannons can still be seen today

For most of the 19th Century, this area was undeveloped, serving as a hunting ground for Lord Charles Somerset, Governor of The Cape. He used The Roundhouse in Camps Bay as his hunting lodge.

The first member of the van Breda family came to the Cape in 1721 and over the years, the family became large landowners. Their home was the famous Orange Zicht homestead in Oranjezicht, a suburb of Cape Town (the house now belongs to the city council). Lord Somerset gave Michael van Breda a piece of land at Oudekraal in 1836 on which to build his own hunting lodge.

At this time and into the first quarter of the 20th century, the farm extended around the Atlantic coast from Camps Bay to Hout Bay and possessed an unusual feature in that the title went down to the high water mark. The van Breda’s gave the public access via the coastal drive between Sea Point and Hout Bay. This road was built in 1848 by Thomas Bain and named in honour of Queen Victoria’s Jubilee – Victoria Road.

In 1929, Jack van Breda designed a handsome house – much after the style of Sir Herbert Baker – with two big white frontal gables and a thatched roof. It took two years to build.
 
Van Breda sold the farm on 28 January 1954 to Sir Henry Philip Price, Chairman of a well-known London tailoring establishment for the price of GBP60 000.

Price issued instructions for the homestead and slightly more than one acre of ground (portion 3) to be divorced from the remainder of the estate.

Emily Bolton purchased portion 3 of the farm, on which the house stood, in 1955 from Sir Henry. Bolton a rich English spinster who lived with her lover, a Mr Butcher. Bolton and Butcher both regarded as recluses, leading strange, solitary lives and paid no attention to the house which fell into disarray. It was rumoured that Butcher did not care for the frivolous way Bolton lived and made her throw all her jewellery into the sea.

The Wiehahn family bought the surrounding Oudekraal Farm from Sir Henry’s estate on 28 May 1968.
The Antipolis while being towed was driven ashore in a storm in 1977.

In 1986 Mel Miller who operated an advertising agency called The White House, bought the house on auction for R405 000.

In 1992, Mel Miller sold the house to the developer Steven Jones for R3.1 million who decided, amidst great controversy, to build a R40 million hotel and conference centre.

Up until 1995, what is now The Twelve Apostles Hotel and Spa was a gabled house that was captivating because it stood so alone. On ordinance maps, it is still marked as a landmark and anyone living there is required to keep the exterior white.

In the same year Kasper Wiehahn encountered a lot of protest when he announced plans to develop portion seven of Oudekraal farm – the section of land closest to Camps Bay. The City Council is still to approve these plans.

The Business Bank buys the hotel from Stephen Jones.

The Business Bank and its assets are bought by PSG Bank.

In March 2002, the hotel becomes part of The Red Carnation Hotel Collection who re-named it The Twelve Apostles Hotel and Spa.

Within just five years all the hotel rooms, suites, restaurants, bars and meeting rooms were completely renovated, a brand new spa facility was built, which has been given a Leading Spa Accreditation, and following the commitment in training staff to provide outstanding service the hotel became a member of the prestigious “Leading Small Hotels of the World”.