Rosy times in the pink palace: the Mount Nelson Hotel in Cape Town has been welcoming illustrious guests for over 125 years – and sometimes turning them away. Now it’s not just the weather from Table Mountain that is providing a breath of fresh air, but also a collaboration with South African designer Thebe Magugu.
When white clouds cover Table Mountain like a tablecloth, the legend of the old pirate Jan van Hunks is whispered from one generation to the next in Cape Town. The buccaneer’s days on the high seas were long behind him at the beginning of the 18th century. Van Hunks preferred to spend the hot summers on a rocky outcrop on Table Mountain, puffing away on his pipe and overlooking his once wet bureau, the sea. On just such a day, a mysterious stranger sat down with the old man. The sun’s rays bounced off the visitor’s hat as he sat down on the grass next to van Hunks and asked him for some tobacco for his pipe. A pirate may steal from rich pockets, but he is just as happy to share his possessions. The stranger gratefully stuffed the dried herb into his smoking pipe and promptly challenged van Hunks to a smoking contest. The kind of thing boys used to do to pass the time before Netflix and gym subscriptions existed. Astonished but confident, the Dutch warhorse agreed. And so the men smoked. And smoked and smoked. Smoked like steam locomotives having to make up for a delay or a vape juice factory on fire. Van Hunks and the stranger smoked for hours, then days. When the people in the valley looked up to Table Mountain, they soon saw it completely enveloped in thick clouds.
A few curious onlookers ventured to the source of the gray haze and saw the stranger’s face slowly turn red. And finally, finally, the pipe fell out of the figure’s mouth and a cough rumbled from his throat. What’s more, the hat tumbled off the loser’s head, revealing two horns to the horror of the crowd. It was then that Jan van Hunks realized that he had just smoked a bet with the devil and won. Humiliated, the Incarnate One let a bright flash of lightning strike from the sky and disappeared from the surface of the earth with the unsuspecting buccaneer. Did his iron lung earn the Dutchman an eternity in hell? It would at least make a good warning on cigarette packets. But whenever Table Mountain disappears into the sea of clouds again, it is said that van Hunks and the devil have returned to smoke for old times’ sake.
A Beatle makes his own bed
The real reason for the unusual cloud formations over Table Mountain is a trade wind, the so-called Cape Doctor. (We know something about tunic designs, but nothing about thermodynamics. That’s why we won’t go into the physical details here). The Cape Doctor actually cares about the inhabitants of the city and blows car and industrial exhaust fumes out to sea, resulting in above-average air quality in Cape Town. And to a natural spectacle that has captured people’s imagination for centuries. The most comfortable place to marvel at this spectacle is the Mount Nelson Hotel at the foot of Table Mountain, which we have well and truly earned after this fairytale and meteorology lesson. Like the rose quartz in a jewelry box, the accommodation towers above the African metropolis and has been collecting its own legends for over 125 years. They begin even before you set foot over the threshold of the building. In the 1990s, for example, then President Bill Clinton’s security apparatus demanded that the avenue of palm trees leading to the hotel be cut down to allow for better surveillance. The management refused and Clinton spent the night elsewhere. Not all the rich and powerful wanted to check in with an axe to grind; Winston Churchill, then a 25-year-old correspondent in the Second Boer War, was full of praise for the recently opened luxury hotel in 1899. It was the first hotel in South Africa to have hot and cold water and its facilities put even most of London’s five-star hotels in the subtropical shade.
30 years later, another Englishman picked up his room key at reception: Arthur Conan Doyle had not come to smoke with the devil, but to talk to the dead. In the last years of his life, the inventor of Sherlock Holmes turned to occultism. On lecture tours, which also took him to Cape Town, Doyle spread his mystical views. In a hotel room at Mount Nelson, he tried to make contact with the world of the dead through séances. Some guests were not comfortable with this, which led to numerous complaints. After all, the first “Ghostbusters” film was still 55 years in the future and in the event of a paranormal emergency, no one would have known who to call for help. John Lennon was also on a spiritual mission when he descended incognito into Mount Nelson in 1980 under the name “Greenwood”. The singer is said to have meditated daily in the garden and dutifully made his own hotel bed. The ex-Beatle wrote two postcards from the hotel to his love affair May Pang. It was one of Lennon’s last trips before he was murdered six months later in New York City. Not in the garden, but in the ballroom almost two decades later, the Dalai Lama sat in the lotus position. He spoke to over 500 followers about the four noble truths of Buddhist teaching (after which a cocktail in the hotel bar is named today). It is not known whether the head of Tibet personally smoothed the sheets and fluffed the pillows before his departure.
From 5 o’clock tea into the ocean
Spiritual enlightenment seems to flow at Mount Nelson, like tea tree shampoo from mini plastic bottles in other hotels. But worldly pleasures are not foreign here either. On the contrary. Jan van Hunks doesn’t have to climb Table Mountain to smoke; he orders a Cohiba Siglo 2 cigar at the Planet Bar. To wash it down, we recommend the 100 Year Old Cigar cocktail, a mixture of rum, whisky, Cynar, Bénédictine and absinthe. Next door in the lounge, Arthur Conan Doyle pours himself a cup of African Pride Honeybush. He is surrounded by a handful of widows who are hoping that he will help them reconnect with their dead husbands. They are comforted by the kaleidoscopic buffet that long-time head pâtissier Vicky Gurovich is serving that afternoon too, attracting haute volee from all over Cape Town and the surrounding area like bees to pollen. Outside, the Dalai Lama peels himself out of his robes. The Oasis Swimming Pool in the lush flowering garden is one of the largest heated swimming pools in South Africa. With a cannonball dive, His Holiness plunges into the water and lands splashes all the way to the pool cabanas at the back. There, the best-attended guests lounge in the shade and enjoy fresh fruit and rosé all day long until the sun reaches its golden hour. Those who have managed to secure a reservation are now getting ready for the Amura restaurant. Ángel León, the “Chef of the Seas” and winner of two Michelin stars, stands at one of the laid tables and explains the culinary concept to a strangely familiar-looking man named Greenwood. The Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet off the coast of Cape Town. This creates a particularly diverse underwater world, which can also be depicted on the plate. Mr. Greenwood opts for the steamed Kingklip, a fish that is only common in this region and whose white meat is considered a delicacy. Chef León serves it with seaweed, prepared in the Basque pil-pil style of his native Spain.
Designer suite with a cultural mission
The Mount Nelson may have many celebrity autographs in its guest book. But one man has left his signature on the walls and floors, flower vases and toothbrush mugs of the hotel. Thebe Magugu is one of South Africa’s most renowned fashion designers. In 2019, he won the LVMH Young Fashion Designer Prize. Collaborations with Valentino, Dior and Adidas brought the 32-year-old international attention. Last year, Thebe ventured into uncharted territory for the Mount Nelson: interior design. The result, which opened in spring 2026, is a suite that sees itself as a meditation on South African history and culture. As with his clothing collections, Magugu draws inspiration from the aesthetic heritage of his homeland. The rooms radiate care and sensuality. An accommodation where not only the body can relax, but where the soul can ground itself with the land on which the walls around it are built. Another new addition to Mount Nelson is Magugu House, an extension designed by Thebe. From now on, exhibitions by contemporary artists from Africa will be shown here. The curation “By Our Own Hands” kicks things off with exhibits by photographer Zanele Muholi and sculptor Zizipho Poswa.
If you want to relax on Table Mountain, you don’t have to worry about accidentally going to hell with the devil. On the contrary. If you put your wet mouth to your cocktail glass by the pool at Mount Nelson, you’ll feel like you’re in heaven. And if you walk through the rooms created by Thebe Magugu, you can intensely feel the land between the earth’s blazing core and the blue dome. South Africa is said to be the cradle of mankind. It has found its worthy king-size bed in Mount Nelson.
Mount Nelson
If you want to see Cape Town through rose-tinted glasses, carry your suitcases to the Mount Nelson. The five-star hotel has been one of the best addresses in South Africa for over 125 years. And one of the most stylish in the world, at least since the collaboration with Thebe Magugu. The fashion designer has designed an Afro-modern suite and opened Magugu House on the hotel grounds, where contemporary art from the African continent is exhibited. Gallery visit and pool session within walking distance? Ring-ring, please check us in. belmond.com
Just as charming as this pink palace: Glenfeshie Lodge in the Scottish wilderness.
Off to Cape Town! Book your room here.
Photos: © Courtney Patrick, Mount Nelson
