Harrie Siertsema is not crazy, as many people think, but an inspired genius with what he has achieved with the Graskop Hotel – the pioneer South African art hotel.

Graskop

Graskop caps a grassy knoll on the edge of the Great Escarpment – a paradise of rugged slopes, endless valleys and plunging waterfalls. The tranquillity of this Eden was shattered in the 1880s with the discovery of gold in the surrounding hills and creeks, which heralded the greatest gold rush since the Klondike.

But the gold soon ran out, leaving the area to return to its slumberous Rip van Winkel ways for a hundred years until the arrival of Harrie Siertsema, who has generated a new excitement with his vision of Graskop as a centre for the arts.

Art, Travel & Food

Harrie, a second generation South African of Dutch descent, has three passions: art, travel and food. The first began as a schoolboy when he purchased a painting with R15 borrowed from his father. Then he caught the travel bug as an architecture student while on a working holiday through Germany and Italy – being especially taken with the art village of Spoleto that is crammed with small galleries and is famed for its annual music and arts festival.

‘Being out in the world made me realise that working in an office was not for me,’ says the tall, deep-voiced Harrie, with a sweep of his arms. ‘So I gave up my studies and joined South African Airways as a flight attendant. Everyone said I was crazy.’

Harrie’s Pancake Bar

They would think him even madder three years later. While working for the airline he formed a lifelong friendship with another steward, Griet van der Meullen. She grew up in Graskop and would often bring him along when she visited her family. He knew from the very first that this was where he wanted to be and when the run-down Ria’s Pancakes came up for sale he jumped at the opportunity to indulge his love for food.

‘Everyone said I was crazy,’ sighs Harrie.

The doubters appeared spot-on after the first day’s takings at Harrie’s Pancake Bar came to a meagre R1 from the sale of a packet of fudge. But they had not reckoned on the drive of Harrie or the appeal of a restaurant that offered a mix of contemporary art décor and a decadently tempting menu stuffed with sweet and savoury delights.

Delagoa Arts and Crafts

Soon he had made enough to acquire the property on which the restaurant stood, which included a house in which he and a number of partners opened Delagoa Arts and Crafts as an extension of the pancake bar – a concept that has been successfully replicated in Dullstroom, Pretoria and at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town. Then, in 1993, the seriously dilapidated adjoining hotel came on the market and Harrie and his partners made an offer.

‘Everyone said I was crazy, even the owner,’ smiles Harrie.

Graskop Hotel

His critics seemed right this time when the first thing Harrie did was close the thuggish bar – the hotel’s only income generator. Out, too, went the red carpets with floral overlay and just about everything else other than the shell. In came the things that would make the Graskop Hotel a leading art hotel.

Everywhere are the works of artists like John Anthony Boersma and Willem Boschoff. The garden too. Now each room is being decorated by a different artist. Complementing this, in the space left by the old bar, is the newly opened ‘A’ Gallery of Contemporary Art, which features artists such as Penny Siopsis and Daniel Mosako.

To this has been added the fabulous Jo Ratcliffe Photographic Gallery, a gallery of West African art and a video installation gallery. Now the hotel has acquired a derelict building across the road for Harrie’s next venture – a space where artists and visitors can interact as they do in Spoleto.

‘Everyone says I’m crazy,’ laughs Harrie.