This legendary hotel has hosted celebrities for 125 years
This November, as Cape Town’s venerable Mount Nelson hotel marks its 125th anniversary, it will do so with a week of shows celebrating fashion designers from South Africa and the African continent beyond, collaborating with the hotel’s pastry chef Vicky Gurovich to bring a special pizazz to the famous afternoon tea service.
A design-forward anniversary for “The Nellie”.
The anniversary shows, curated by independent fashion and sustainability publication Twyg will transform Mount Nelson’s lounge, terrace, and garden into a fashion salon from November 5 to 9.
The third iteration of Confections X Collections as the program is called, highlights two South African designers: LVMH (Louis Vuitton-Moet-Hennessy) Prize winner and 2023 Amiri Prize winner Lukhanyo Mdingi, who blends artisanal craft with modernity, and Johannesburg-based designer Rich MnisiI, known for his bold expression of Tsonga culture and craftsmanship.
Joining them are Nigerian-based designers Bubu Ogisi, who works with ancient African textile techniques and 2023 International Woolmark Prize winner, Adeju Thompson of Lagos Space Programme.
It’s a beautiful illustration of just how far the city of Cape Town has come since apartheid – which made it impossible for black people to enter the hotel freely, let alone be celebrated in it – ended in 1990.
Afternoon tea at the Mount Nelson.
But today the Mount Nelson, A Belmond Hotel Cape Town, or “the Nellie” as the famously pink hotel is known locally, prides itself on being one of the South African city’s most socially conscious hotels, its work on environmental programs and fundraising for the construction of homes in impoverished local communities just two of its outreach initiatives.
With an A-Z of celebrity clients ranging from Agatha Christie to Lenny Kravitz, there’s no doubting the Mount Nelson’s place in the lexicon of legendary hotels.
Bought by Orient-Express in 1988, which expanded the hotel before the company was renamed Belmond in 2014, it was then bought by luxury powerhouse, LVMH in 2019. Throughout it all, the Nellie’s historic flair has remained its calling card.
In the swim at the Mount Nelson.
Founded on the Mount Nelson Estate that was established in the 1700s, the hotel was built in the late 1800s to a design by London architects and filled with British luxury furnishings, its original purpose being to accommodate passengers of the British Castle Line shipping company.
Only a few months after its opening ,the hotel became the British headquarters for the Second Boer War, with Sir Winston Churchill passing through the corridors.
After World War I, British society came to holiday for the European winter, some leaving luggage for the next year’s holiday – one billeting a Rolls Royce permanently in the hotel garages.
King George VI, stayed with Queen Elizabeth, Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret. Other royalty flocked too.
In more recent times it has hosted everyone from Michael Buble to the Dalai Lama and with two heated swimming pools, a cutting-edge gym, and even a kids club, the 198-room hotel’s own star twinkles as brightly as ever as it celebrates another milestone.
See belmond.com
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