Where history and modernity meet in a luxurious setting

Brian Berkman kept his eyes peeled for ghosts in the oldest continuously run hotel in South Africa, but all he found was a fabulous two-night stay.

- Brian Berkman

South Africa's oldest and continuously run hotel, Oude Werf in Church Street, Stellenbosch in the Western Cape, is owned by the Petousis hotelier family, who also own another, equally historic hotel - the Vineyard Hotel, in Claremont, Cape Town.

The Vineyard was once home to Lady Anne Barnard and her husband Andrew, colonial secretary to the governor of the Cape of Good Hope.

Oude Werf was built on the site of the first church built in Stellenbosch, and the Petousis family have history and hospitality in their veins. In 1968, they purchased Trocadero, just around the corner from the first Dutch church in Cape Town, from South African Breweries.

They demolished it to create the 107-room Townhouse Hotel, which was highly acclaimed for 50 years but sadly shuttered during the COVID-19 pandemic.

ARCHITECTURAL CHARM

The Petousis family are descendants of the Albertyn family, who were among the congregants of Stellenbosch's first church, built between 1686 and 1687.

A thatch-roofed building, its bell tower is visible in the earliest known sketch of Stellenbosch from 1710, before the church and much else of the town was twice destroyed by fire.

Though attempts were made to rebuild the church, a new site, in 1770, was chosen at the top of Church Street. Oude Werf takes its name from the 'old churchyard'. You can still see the original foundations, a disinterred grave, and even the remnants of the original pulpit of the first church, under the hotel's restaurant.