Владельцы отеля Zomerlust в Паарле превратили старинную усадьбу в роскошный бутик-отель с историческим шармом

I arrived in Paarl on a winter night in late June — late. I was expected at Zomerlust Boutique Hotel at a civilised 3pm. Instead, the day accumulated small irritations with the efficiency of compound interest - fiddly obligations that eat 20 minutes here, 40 there, until suddenly it’s rush hour and Cape Town has placed Paarl somewhere beyond Outer Mongolia. I eventually pulled into Zomerlust at about 7pm, apologetic and frazzled. Waiting for me was co-owner Wayne Williams, who looked more cheerful than a man entitled to resent a guest for being late. There was a reason. He wanted to show me his hotel and within minutes, I understood why. Williams and his business partner, Wikus Lategan, are commercial property developers and first-time hoteliers who originally bought the 1.3ha Main Road property with grander development schemes in mind. Zomerlust was incidental: an ageing hotel that had opened in 1993 and, in recent years, lost its lustre. Then the old house got under their skin. “We bought it for the development land at the back,” Williams says. “But this ran away with us when we started fixing it.” Many expensive sentences begin this way! What followed was a complete restoration and rethink of a property whose history stretches back to 1792. Originally Cape Dutch, the main house evolved through Georgian influences and later acquired the sort of early-20th-century embellishments described as “Baker-esque”. There are thick walls, lead-paned windows, handsome architraves, old tiles, elaborate woodwork and the slightly eccentric proportions that make heritage buildings wonderful to visit — and maddening to renovate. “You can’t change anything,” Williams says as we peer into each different room. Instead, they worked with it. Local interior designer Misi Overturf has given Zomerlust the personality that makes the ubiquitous beige boutique hotel seem a failure of imagination. Her palette borrows from the Boland landscape: burnt oranges and ochres, citrus yellows, lime and forest greens, deep blues and softer shades inspired by mountain, sky, vineyard and garden. There’s William Morris wallpaper everywhere — even ceilings, striped upholstery, florals, restored antiques and contemporary pieces. One room is enveloped in green; another feels masculine, with wooden floors and richer tones. Bathrooms appear in their own unexpected colour combinations, some with freestanding Victoria + Albert tubs, fluted-glass showers and two-tone tiles. But it hangs together beautifully. The trick, Overturf suggests, is that eclecticism requires more discipline than minimalism. Anyone can make a room harmonious by making everything greige. Doing it with orange, green, botanical wallpaper and a coloured bathtub requires vision. Williams’ pride in the result is transparent and very endearing. He’s positively beaming as he shows me around. “All the rooms are different,” he says, repeatedly pointing out details. Then there are the bees. Zomerlust’s former emblem was, Williams says dismissively, “a kind of Zorro Z ... boring”. Overturf replaced it with a bee, reasoning that bees build intricate homes, live in communities and, importantly, always return to the hive. The motif buzzes discreetly through the property. Hexagonal flooring references honeycomb, bees appear in embroidery and décor, there are bee-inspired cocktails, honey and honey-scented products. There are bee-emblazoned slippers that Williams implores me to take with me. Thankfully, nobody has dressed the staff as apiarists. Zomerlust with all it’s charms is luxurious and grandly comfortable without making you feel trepidatious about the impending bill. Eleven rooms occupy the main house and there are four more in Die Stalle, restored former stables. My signature suite was generous, comfortable and overlooked the Paarl landscape, but the hotel is full of smaller pleasures too: the plant-filled Sun Stoep where morning light pours in; a restored library stocked with board games and chess; all-day coffee, pastries and cold drinks included for guests. Impressively, everything in each room’s well-stocked minibar is complimentary too; and, importantly for anyone who’s ever crawled around beneath hotel furniture looking for somewhere to charge a phone, an abundance of plugs and USB points. “We installed a lot,” Williams says. “That’s one of the things hotels lack.” The hotel’s history becomes more complicated downstairs. Parts of what’s now SMEUL Restaurant (the Afrikaans word means to smoulder) date to the late 1700s. The walls are thick; some spaces formed part of the servants’ quarters, and Williams points out barred windows and an old kitchen area associated with enslaved people who once lived and worked here. Rather than sanding history into something prettier, brittle walls have been left exposed and subtly painted by artist Mernette Swartz. The dining and kitchen rooms belong to chef Kevin Grobler, and if the hotel is about preserving a building without embalming it, the restaurant follows the same philosophy. Grobler, a Paarl local whose CV includes JAN in Nice and Delaire Graff restaurants, cooks with open flame and wood-fired stoves — a trend that’s both fashionable and ancient. The menu is one of the hotel’s elements that will ensure I return. Fire-roasted beetroot arrives with smoked coconut yoghurt; lamb is cooked until its richness falls off the bone; vegetables carry the char and sweetness that flame delivers better than any sous-vide bath ever will. Williams insists that the beef carpaccio is the most delicious I’ll ever taste, but I opt for the beef tartar special. It’s good, but when the owner’s starter arrives and he offers me a taste, I make a note to always listen to the expert. We have fresh line fish for mains, and it’s exceptional — firm, charred and full of flavour. I’m stuffed, but Williams suggests we should taste the desserts, so we have all three: pumpkin Basque cheesecake; a theatrical, marinated citrus meringue torched tableside; and chocolate and coffee semifreddo. In winter, Zomerlust feels particularly suited to cocooning and we head to the ladies bar, one of the first registered ladies bars in the country, for a last drink. There’s something deeply satisfying about returning upstairs after dinner, passing wallpaper designed more than a century ago, climbing a Burmese teak staircase and disappearing into an enormous bed in a room with walls thick enough to defeat both weather and stray hotel noises. By breakfast the next morning, I was sincerely regretting my ridiculous arrival time. Every minute in this sanctuary now feels cherished. Looking out my anteroom window at the buttercup Rolls-Royce the owners bought to stand sentry in the road, I know I’ll be back. Paarl itself has sometimes suffered by comparison with the more marketed Winelands towns of Franschhoek and Stellenbosch. But Main Road is one of the Cape’s great architectural journeys, lined with buildings representing centuries of local history, while the surrounding mountains give the town a grandeur that frames it. Zomerlust provides another reason to explore the town. Williams and Lategan may have stumbled into hotel ownership, but the accident has produced something exceptional. They haven’t tried to turn an old Paarl homestead into a generic luxury hotel. Nor have they preserved it so reverently that staying there feels like sleeping in a museum. They’ve let the past misbehave slightly. William Morris meets lime-green bathrooms, antique wardrobes coexist with USB-C ports, centuries-old walls contain a restaurant built around fire, a bee has replaced a boring Z, an entranceway arch is painted jewel green. It amazes me that two property developers who intended to build something else discovered that the most interesting thing on their land was already there and then went all in, invigorating Zomerlust, as is fitting for a place full of bees. RESERVATIONS [email protected] | +27 21 872 2117 | www.zomerlust.co.za SMEUL reservations via Dineplan: dineplan.com/restaurants/smeul