With more than 1,000 works throughout its halls, rooms, gardens, and private art gallery, Ellerman House boasts one of the most important art collections in South Africa.
, which designs custom tours of galleries, studios, and art exhibitions in Cape Town and Johannesburg. Swarts has been guiding guests of Ellerman House through its staggering 1,000 works for more than a decade—what started as the occasional private tour a few times a year has now resulted in her team typically offering two per day, as visitors become more and more curious about the masterpieces that surround them.
One of Cape Town’s most exclusive addresses—only hotel guests can cross the threshold, and when they do, they have free rein over the mansion, complete with access to a pantry stocked with cakes and sweets at any hour of the day—Ellerman House is the passion project of South African financier Paul Harris. His other passion is South African art, and the hotel doubles as a showcase for just a fraction of the works he’s been diligently amassing for decades.
Tours typically begin in the elegant library, where Swarts discusses the country’s complex colonial history and the range of creative influences that converged over the centuries. Some of the oldest pieces in the collection line a hallway around the corner: sketches by Edmund Pink, oil paintings by Thomas Bowler, and a depiction of Camps Bay beach and the iconic Twelve Apostles mountain range by Jan Volshenk.
Every visit to Cape Town should include stops at the celebrated Zeitz MOCAA museum and the city’s vibrant art galleries—but Ellerman House serves as the ultimate primer to the country’s creative landscape. “This is really a crazy collection for a hotel—this should be in a museum,” says Swarts. “We really rely on collections like these to keep our art safe and in South Africa.”
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