A few years ago a guest wrote in our guest book: Fairview = Philda. Initially I thought: "what an odd thing to write in a guest book", but then I realized that this man actually understood the essence of what it is about when you stay in a B&B opposed to a hotel -that personal touch added by the owner. Whenever I show guests through our garden I feel such a fraud because if I am the one adding the special touch to the guest house, then our garden = Desmond. Shortly after we started the guest house I asked him to move his gardening activities to the front garden as we had two sets of guests arriving and I wanted him to let them in as I just quickly wanted to go to the grocery store. My instructions that it was a couple for Room 1 and a family for Room 3 was met with: “which one is Room 3 again?". So I patiently explained for the millionth time: Room 1 is the yellow room to the right as you enter, as it has been since the restoration 17 years ago. Room 3 has been Room 3 since the boys left home more than 12 years ago... When they arrived he told them he was not sure which rooms I had allocated and that it was best to wait for my return. The one guest told him that they were in Room 1, on which he asked if they knew whether that was a yellow room. In his defense I must add that he invited them into the lounge and offered tea and chocolate cookies. Our guest came up with a super solution: why not ask him to name the rooms after flowers - the yellow room could be Sunflower Room, the orange room could be the Pincushion Room etc. The incident reminded me of another occasion when he was working in the front as guest arrived. It was pouring with rain - not that the rain has ever prevented Desmond from gardening. When I opened the front door it was to find Desmond and the guests in a fit of laughter ; as he explained later - he did not notice the guests initially and wearing his bright yellow rain suit he must have looked quite a sight - they rang the front door bell and then asked him if the proprietor was in? He answered: “She’ll be down presently. I'm just the gardener, but I do sleep with the proprietor".
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(Text and photographs by Alex Cremer)
Because it was partly hidden behind high boundary walls, the true beauty of Fairview only became obvious once I drove through the new gates. Then the regal proportions and straight-lined design of the double storey dwelling, built around 1865, could be properly viewed. To me, the old place had a rather Georgian flavour that was further enhanced by the symmetry of the quite formal front garden, or perhaps I simply sought a scenario where traditional European elegance blended with the typical colonial style of the Victorian era. When they bought the house in 1994, Philda and her husband,Desmond, a medical doctor, were astounded to see how little respect previous owners had for the historic value of the old place. Some areas were modernized and altered in a rather indiscriminate way, with haphazard repairs to damaged antique doors and windows, while sections added to the side were out of character with the original architectural design. "Obviously we tried to get it all as close to the original as possible, but we had to play off the practical side of a family home against true authenticity," says Desmond. "The purist may frown on some work done, or why we left certain modern aspects intact, but we wanted true comfort that reflected a sense of gracious Victorian living and not a stuffy museum." Even so, it was hard to get everything neat and tidy. The local architect firm of Smuts and De Kock Incoporated were called in to help, mainly with a new bathroom for the guest rooms, and the replanning needed to eliminate problems with the pitch of the flat roof sections and parapet walls. The kitchen was also completely remoddled according to their plans that incorporated the original hearth, now fitted with a wood-burning stove to capture that homely character enjoyed before the dawn of electricity. One of the biggest tasks was the stripping of multi-layers of white paint that covered the huge Oregon pine support beams for the timber floors upstairs. This time-consuming job was expertly executed by Jannie Malherbe and his team of workers from the firm Futro. "Some 30 years ago, local pine was used to replace the original floorboards in the main lounge downstairs, but luckily the rest of the old Oregon floor boards were in a good condition," says Philda. "All we had to do was call in flooring expert Syd Ter Morshuizen to sand and retreat all the boards." To expose the beauty of the timber floors upstairs the wall-to-wall carpets in the main bedroom and twin rooms for the Benkenstein boys, Eckart and Alex, were removed. Their daughter's room and the family room across the passage received coir matting and a double layer of underfelt to dampen any sound transmitted through the floorboards to the two guest suites below. Six of the old top storey sash windows were in a very bad state, and craftsman Jack Fourie was asked to make new units by copying the original design. All the old windows downstairs were in a superb condition, even down to the hand-floated glass panes and the Oregon pine shutters installed by the builders more than a century ago. The chimneys of the four fireplaces in the old house needed radical repairs before the units could again radiate any heat into the vast interior. The original unit in the main lounge was replaced with a similar antique model supplied by Peter Long of Cape Town. "We had to hunt for appropriate good light fittings to replace the modern ones that were in the house. A major purchase was an old European copper candelabra that had been electrified for the lounge," says Philda, but she also relates the story of the blackened lamp found among rubbish in an outside room. "We liked the design, and after cleaning it, were amazed to find it was made from good antique silver. It found a place of honour on the top landing." In deciding on an interior colour scheme Philda went mainly for bright yellow and a darker hue somewhere between salmon and terracotta. It was fairly easy to complement these two specially mixed Plascon colours with accents of white. Although the Benkensteins brought some pieces from their previous home in Namibia, these had rather small proportions and had to be supplemented with bigger items like armoires and ornate dressers, pretty tables big enough for family gatherings and lovely cast-iron double beds for the guest suites. The search for these items ranged from Port Alfred to Cape Town, and was later extended to vast sections of the Great Karoo. And they were lucky to find antique metal door locks complete with genuine old-fashioned brass and porcelain knobs. Although still in developing stages, the couple's aim to create a true English country garden around the main dwelling is beginning to take shape. Already the formal front section with it's roses and classical water feature is flourishing, as well as the herb and vegetable garden at the back. It took a great deal of effort to once again capture Fairview's long lost splendour and elegance. full marks to Desmond and Philda for seeing this potential, and taking up the challenge to rescue this historic George landmark. Last Saturday evening we went to bed early as we only had one couple staying - only to be cruelly awoken at 11.45 by the gate bell being rung - repeatedly... As I have a slight hearing impairment the bell is set to ring very loudly and to discourage people from ringing it repeatedly it is also set to ring loudly at the gate. Desmond went down to open the gate as we could see that these people were not taking 'no' for an answer.
To my surprise I could hear that he was actually booking them in - we normally, as a security measure, do not take off-street bookings after hours. It transpired that they had made an online booking earlier and for some reason the text message notification never came through on my mobile phone, so I did not know about their arrival as I never checked my computer between returning from a late afternoon movie, making dinner and retiring early. That they did not think it unacceptable to book in nearly midnight without prior arrangement just added to the chain of events of how things go very wrong when they start going wrong. They told Desmond that they had booked a different room to the one he gave them and they were none too happy when he insisted that that was the only room that they could have booked (the others were either occupied or closed for renovation). The next morning I printed out the confirmation e-mail to show them that they had indeed booked room 2 and Room 2 was the room that they got as I pointed to the number 2 on the door. They did not take to a proprietor who did not believe that the customer is always right and neither did the proprietor take to argumentative guests - we were on a speedy downhill slope. To the point where I said to Desmond that I wondered if I could give myself a bad review on TripAdvisor? Over breakfast they said that the shower was not draining properly and that they therefor could not shower. I asked their permission to send our housekeeper into the room to check out the drain while they were having breakfast. Prior to them I had guests who stayed 5 days in that room with no problem. I gave Liesbet a dose of bio degradable drain cleaner with instructions to pour it down the drain of Room 2 , add a liter of boiling water, to replace wet towels and to make sure the electric towel rails were on. She came back reporting job done, but found it strange that the water ran down perfectly well and assured me that the towels were nice and toasty on the heated towel rails as instructed. Well, you guessed: Liesbet had gone into Room 1, not Room 2! This transpired when the understandably unhappy guest came to me with a look of exasperation on her face and frustration in her voice to tell me that the wet towels were still lying exactly on the floor as she had left it. What more could go wrong? Desmond being Desmond answered: ' they could eventually have a shower and the gas bottle could empty right then"! As a fellow B&B owner told me: 'Only one thing to do Philda. Make yourself a cup of tea, go and find yourself a quiet spot in the garden, take your guest book and read all the gushing thank you's and compliments about excellent service, hospitable hosts etc. etc.!' But I still wonder if I could give myself a bad review on TripAdvisor? One of the sites we market on, just asked to give the 'house rules' Which had me thinking... In the end this is what I gave them: Fairview Homestead is a 7 bedroom guest house in B&B style - that means we, the owners, live on the premises. Our guest rooms are private, but we have a communal lounge/breakfast area for the guests. The only rules I can think of are : no non-paying guests in the bedrooms for longer than 10 minutes ; no cigarette buds in the garden, no unsupervised children in the swimming pool, be nice to the hosts...
That was said 'tongue in cheek' ! We have had paying guests in our house for more than 17 years and I've never had to pin down rules, so I do not think I am going to start now. So often friends will ask if we do not get tired of sharing our home with guests. After all these years I can honestly say that we still enjoy it. ! But being put on the spot to think about house rules, I also realised that those mentioned are the only things that sometimes gets me upset. I once found two children playing by themselves - their parents had gone shopping. We have not had much trouble with the cigarette buds in the garden, but we find cigarette buds on the beach repulsive, so I can just imagine what Desmond would say if he found them amongst his flowers. About 'be nice to the hosts' you'll understand if you read the post http://www.fairview.lithe.co.za/right-of-admission-reserved/ And the rule 'no non-paying guests in the bedrooms for longer than 10 minutes' is because of another incident which ,I think, is any guest house owner's worst nightmare. I woke up with a start one morning at 2am , walked downstairs to get a glass of water and then got a start as the front door slammed , accompanied by female laughter as someone came in. Not so abnormal, but what woke me up completely was that I had two single businessmen booked into the two doors at the front. As I contemplated how to handle this, the laughter just became more raucous. It dawned on me that both these gentlemen had ladies in their rooms. As I said to Desmond afterwards - I went from scared to angry in 3000 revs. I stormed down the passage, banged on the doors, shouting: 'every non-paying guest in these rooms have exactly 5 minutes to leave. How dare you abuse my hospitality like this?'. Now, the evening before, Desmond saw a program about Dachshunds and thought a baby Dachshund would make a good friend for Juno our Bull Mastiff and he always thought they were such cute looking dogs. Juno is such a softie and in the television program they said that Dachshunds have more aggression than most breeds and make the perfect guard dogs. So he argued that the Dachshund would be the guard dog, while Juno looks scary because of her size. South Africans have a thing about guard dogs that I find so overrated. I would have none of this. I do not like yapping dogs ; my father had a little Dachshund that yapped incessantly - I had enough of yapping dogs as a child to last me a lifetime. As I crawled back into bed Desmond whispered in my ear: 'who needs a Dachshund, I've got you babe...' Man comes to the front door of a guest house and says he's Mr. Smith, booked in for two nights.
Proprietor: 'Would you like me to carry your bag from the car, sir'. Guest: 'No, she can walk, but you can bring the luggage.' Innkeeper: The room is R1000- a night. It's R50- if you make your own bed. Guest: I'll make my own bed. Innkeeper: Good. I'll get you some nails and wood. Paddy is booked into a guest house, and looking round,notices a sign on the wall. He says to the owner: "What time do you get in by?" The owner looks confused and says: "Well, I am the owner, I live here. Why do you ask?" Says Paddy,"Well, on that sign there, it says guests have to be in before you!" The owner replies,"No, it says: "Guests must be in before 1 am"! I do believe in laughing through the turmoil of running a B&B and let's face it there are lots of opportunity for a good chuckle every now and then. At the time I was not amused, but I often tell people about the grading assessor who gave me 3 out of 10 for my furniture. When I queried it she waved her hand in exasperation toward my antique furnished room and exclaimed, "but you only have mismatched second-hand furniture". You can only smile... and cancel star grading. A fellow guesthouse owner told me about one of her guests who asked in a strong ‘Indian’ accent whether her young employee (fresh out of high school, and not yet with an ear accustomed to foreign accents) had “toilet paper”. The young lady promptly went to get what she heard the guest had asked for – the guest was of course very surprised when she returned, as he had in fact asked for “today’s paper”! Fortunately, the guest had a sense of humour and not only had a good laugh about the incident, but shared the joke with the guest house owner! Sometimes my ability to smile lands me in trouble. I once walked out to greet guests and there they were sitting in their car, while the husband lets rip with a tongue lashing of note. What to do - turn around and leave them to it? But what if they take that as inhospitable? In the end, I pretended not to hear them and industriously started deadheading the nearest daisy bush. When the wife timidly walked toward me I smiled bravely and told her to come in - I'll make them a nice cup of tea. She explained that her husband was very upset with her map reading abilities. At that stage, Angry Hubby was slamming car doors and huffing and puffing with the luggage, but the next minute he tells me to wipe that smile off my face! Me? Wipe the smile off my face? In a flash, it was gone. I then calmly pointed toward the Right of Admission sign above my front door and told him to put his luggage right back into the car as he would not be sleeping in my guest house. Today I can laugh at this incident, but at the time it was not funny - I am in the business of welcoming guests into our home, not chasing them away! But that is the promised blog post about the day that I fell back on the "right of admission reserved" sign. In March 2008 we had as guest the granddaughter of one of the Stander daughters. She sent me a poem written by her grand-mother. On weekends the daughters would stroll down to the Kat River and obviously, the young Maria met a young man from the other side of the river whom her parents did not approve of.
Remembrance Twixt bracken banks and shady woods The streamlet ripples gently west Where oft in childhood’s happy days I watched the wood-finch build it’s nest; Where oft in happier days we wove The golden threads of love’s young dream To warbles sweet and twillering tones – Sweet music from the rippling stream!But when in after days those banks Recorded sorrow’s doleful theme, I heeded not the linnet’s song, Not heard the rippling of the stream! When skies are blue and fields are green, And all the world seems bright and fair, All veiled to us the distant scene With what it harbours over there! Too soon we learned life’s sad refrain: “Sunshine and sorrow ever meet!” Had we but met to part again, Our hopes be shattered by defeat! For him his queen was never to wear A bridal blossom in her hair, For him, no bridal veil to hide The crimson of his blushing bride! How oft I dreamt that at his side, In all the world the happiest bride, Entranced I stood in ecstasy – My dark-eyed prince, a king to me! Alas that love is but a dream And mournful we awake to find As we retrace our steps again, Our loved ones’ foot-prints left behind! Those foot-prints on the sands of time Are treasures thine, oh memory, To cherish in the starless night When sorrow bids us fly to thee! Remembrance, aye, this God’s great gift Which through this dismal vale of ours, Recalls in accents soft and sweet, Sweet memories of bygone years! M.C. Retief. As the once proud owner of a 1958 Volkswagen and belonging to the local Old Car Club, I am forever encouraging guests to visit the local Railway Museum just up the road, where private vintage car owners can display/store their vehicles amongst the Railway exhibitions. I chanced upon the following passage in the delightful book by Victor Smith called 'Open Cockpit over Africa' in which he tells of his adventures flying more than 13 000 miles from George to London and back. Arriving back in George he was welcomed back as a hero by the locals. (Fairview is, of course, the Mayoral home mentioned...
Uncle Jack Smith (JK), who had once claimed expenses from the tax-man for 'lubrication of the best machine in the factory' (brandy for himself), arrived in great style in his new six-cylinder Studebaker. But, despite his weakness, never let it be said that uncle Jack was not a man of his word. I think the reader will agree when he or she reads the story which I will now have to tell. Oom (Uncle) Koos Stander, Mayor of George, paid me the honor of a handshake with hands the size of boxing gloves. Oom Koos, with JK Smith, had been two of the most enthusiastic supporters of the bar in the old Victoria Hotel at the top of York Street - now the George Museum. Said my uncle, after his fourth brandy, to the ex-mayor who was holding a cigar in his left hand and a brandy in his right: "Koos ou swaer (old brother-in-law) I think you are becoming a bit of an alcoholic!" "Nonsense, I can give it up anytime I want to. I'll bet you five pounds I can go without a drink longer than you can." "Taken", says JK. " I'll bet you the brand-new Studebaker I can abstain for longer than you can; we start from tomorrow." Six weeks, or it may have been six days later, Uncle Jack decided that one small brandy would be very nice, and no one would notice. After looking around the bar he walked in and ordered a double. Great minds think alike, and before JK started to settle down to business, Oom Koos with the same idea in mind peeped around the door and walked in. Uncle Jack paid up - but the ex-mayor never learned to drive. It was always to be next week. The brand new Studebaker could be seen for many years corroding away beside the ex-mayoral home." In The Oudtshoorn Courant and Het Suid-Western on Wednesday, September 27, 1978, Brenda Hartdegen reported:
GEORGE: A magnificent leather-bound 260-year-old Bible was sold for R535 after brisk bidding at an auction of mostly antique furniture. The Bible was bought by a Cape Town dealer, Mr. H A Lammers, who flew to George especially to attend the sale. And he is confident that he will sell it immediately to one of several Dutch dealers who are out in South Africa from Holland to buy up all the Dutch antiques they can find. Antiques in Holland have become very scarce and the dealers have now turned their attention to South Arica which is still regarded as a rich field for many Dutch antiques. Mr. Lammers flew to George mainly to buy paintings that were to be sold at the auction. "But I found the painting very disappointing and not of a high quality and then I saw the Bible and I knew my trip to George had not been wasted. The only thing that worried me was that the auction was going so slow to start with that they'd never get around to putting the Bible up before I had to catch my plane." The Bible, a Staten Bijbel, was printed in Dordrecht Amsterdam in 1719. It is printed in scroll print on hand-made paper. It is bound in leather with brass hasps and corner supports. "What makes this particular Bible highly negotiable to an overseas dealer is that it is not a family Bible with limited South African connotations," Mr. Lammers said. "By that I mean the record of the family who owned it is not written in it." But slipped inside the front of the Bible is a handprinted and painted certificate in Dutch stating that Sophia Anna van Straatenwas born on 5 December 1811, and baptised in the Cape Colony on 1 January 1812. Bidding against Mr. Lammers Towards the end was Mr. Harold Groombridge of Knysna, owner of the famous genuine gypsy caravan that used to be parked alongside the national road at the Garden Of Eden. Mr. Lammers said that he would have been prepared to bid up to R600 for the Bible. "I must be able to recover the cost of my trip to George and make a small profit when I sell it," he said. The Bible belonged to Mr. E Swallow. Most of the goods on the auction sale were owned by him and were bought from the estate of the Stander twins, Blanche and Ethel. In 1976 Mr. Swallow also bought their historic home in Stander Street, built before 1890, for R33 000. He bought most of the furniture in the house at a later auction sale. The house was also up for sale at the auction The highest bid was R25 000 but it is not known whether this bid was accepted. Hundreds of people attended the auction which started at 9 am and lasted for most of the rest of the day. Another high bid was R850 for a beautiful old piano We take pride in our unique fruit entrées- sometimes a plated fruit salad, other times a mini portion of Bircher Muesli garnished with apple shards, or a homemade smoothie with carrot, ginger, orange and apple... On the buffet we have an assortment of cereals: homemade muesli, ProNutro, bran flakes, Weetabix as well as yogurt, more fresh fruit and a baked fruit compote, which in season consists of rhubarb or quince from the garden, otherwise stewed prunes, guavas or peaches.
Maize porridge made on request in summer, in winter it is standard fare. We like to serve it with a dollop of cream or double thick yogurt or a drizzle of maple syrup or honey - and my personal favorite: the syrup from preserved figs. Yes, we have our own fig tree and do preserved figs the way your grandmother did. All the preserves are homemade from fruit grown at Fairview: peaches, apricots, kumquats, tree tomatoes, guava, orange, strawberries, tomatoes, figs... For our homemade compotes, we use plums, quince, rhubarb, and apple. We like to buy our bread from our local La Pattiserie. Whenever Desmond asks how it is that a woman with 5 ovens in her kitchen does not bake bread every day I answer him that I have to support Claire and Antoine : Claire grew up with our children and went off for a stint in France where she worked in a French bakery and had the good sense to marry and bring home Antoine so that our George tables can be graced with his delicious bread. For the main course of your breakfast, you could treat your taste buds to one of our mouthwatering omelets, made to order, that will leave you wanting to come back for more. We have perfected the art of a one egg omelet for the cholesterol conscious guests (or those who simply find that they cannot handle such a big breakfast early in the morning). Guests who enjoy a traditional breakfast will appreciate the fact that we always try to ring the changes: be it with a small portion of our own take on baked beans, a sweetcorn griddle cake, fried green tomatoes or some other little accompaniment we'll think up to take 'bacon and eggs' to a non-boring level. We'll never compromise on good quality back bacon and sausages are from our local butcher. You name it, we'll make it: Eggs Benedict, Waffles, Stuffed French Toast, Frittata, Eggplant fritters Eggs Benedict: two poached eggs, settled on a piece of sauteed ham, nestled on a split and toasted English muffin, topped with a Hollandaise sauce. Eggs Florentine: same as Eggs Benedict, but remove the meat and replace with sautéed spinach. Dutch Baby Pancake: a souffléd pancake baked and stuffed with carmelized apples. Pancakes: either thin pancakes served with cinnamon sugar or flap-jacks served with maple syrup and crispy bacon. Stuffed French Toast: French bread stuffed with cheese,ham and topped with flash-fried cherry tomatoes (and a sunnyside up egg should you wish..) We serve fresh juices and our coffee is roasted by Baruch Roasters from Mossel Bay. We prefer to make our coffee to order using a Bialetti coffee brewer but we also can offer plunger coffee (we have the coffee specially ground for the plungers, so no muddy residue in your cup) or Nespresso. For the tea lovers we have a multitude of black, Rooibos, Honeybush, green, herbal and other teas. I have noticed that guest houses will often set the television to a news channel during breakfast.To me that is just one notch above listening to rap while having a meal - who wants to start his day with bad news, and let's face it, 'news' will inevitably be bad news. For seventeen years my background music of choice at the breakfast table has been light classical music, but I also have quite a collection of 'soothing' background CD's. I think one should be careful with vocals and I prefer to play soothing instrumental music if not light classical. As I was grocery shopping today I suddenly became aware that the shop was playing classical music. It will not surprise me if they find that clients shop longer and more with soothing classical music in their ears. I for one immediately went off to find the floor manager and compliment her on their choice of music. You have to understand - at the end of the year I run through the supermarket like a mad woman just so that I can limit the time that I have to listen to 'jingle bells rock' and the likes. I just do not understand how shops and restaurants do not grasp the power of music - how it can build or destroy the shopping mood in a flash. Imagine buying a pair of shoes with a waltz playing in the background.... Now imagine buying a pair of shoes to the beat of a rap song... I rest my case. When my children were still at home I once had a CD with Gregorian chants playing in the background and just as I was serving breakfast my one son came running into the breakfast room and, without greeting anyone, he grabbed the remote from the table, changed CD's and with blazer coat flying went running off to school. When he came home I reprimanded him for not greeting the guests and just changing my music without asking me. His answer: 'Mom, I heard that freaky music and thought to myself, shame, those poor guests will never get their bacon and eggs down with that playing in the background'. I suppose each to his own... |
About the blogEnglish is my second language. I blog about life as a guesthouse owner - it's personal, it is from the heart, it's honest. The inside story. The ups and downs of owning a guest house... AuthorFor book orders in S.A. click on this link Categories
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