Family History

In 1869 the first De Wet (the present owners great great grandfather), called Koos, bought the land. The story goes that he eloped with his brother’s fiance. His mother's brother, Kosie Marais from Klipdrift (house of Klipdrift brandy) financed him with £1700.00 to buy the whole of Zandvliet. Koos's great love was horses which did very well on the lime rich soil of the district.

In 1869 the first De Wet (the present owners great great grandfather), called Koos, bought the land. The story goes that he eloped with his brother's fiance. His mother's brother, Kosie Marais from Klipdrift (house of Klipdrift brandy) financed him with £1700.00 to buy the whole of Zandvliet. Koos's great love was horses which did very well on the lime rich soil of the district. To improve the quality of the horses in 1873, he imported the great race horse OCTAVIOUS CEASER from the Stud of Queen Victoria.

Zandvliet was divided among three of his sons. The eastern third was called Zandvliet, the middle Prospect and the western portion Excelsior. Kosie inherited EXCELSIOR in the mid-1890. During the Boer War he married Joey van der Westhuizen. Joey's family came from Oudtshoorn and while they were pretty broke, the Van der Westhuizens were well connected. Joey's aunt married a wealthy Oudtshoorn ostrich farmer, with a typical Afrikaans surname of Olivier. Mr Olivier made a fortune out of ostrich feathers and visited Europe in grand style. When he returned to South Africa he had forgotten how to speak Afrikaans and changed his surname to Oliver. He built a so-called Ostrich palace called "Oliver Towers" which was the most opulent house in Oudsthoorn at the time. To build the house cost the same as building the Swart berg Pass - £25 000.00.

Where Kowie was related to the Robertson Marais, Joey was related to the Cape Town Marais from her mother's side. These Marais were of the wealthiest family in Cape Town. Joey went to a finishing school in Cape Town and used to visit the Marais in their lovely house, called Bordeaux. With her grand relative, Joey was programmed to love beautiful and expensive things and this influenced Kowie and their offspring for the next half century. At this time Kowie started farming with Ostriches in a big way. At the time one feather could be sold for £6.00, which was what you need to pay for your passage on the Union Castle, from Cape Town to Southampton. An ounce of feathers was worth more than an ounce of gold.

With his new found wealth Kowie commissioned an architect firm from Cape Town to design a new opulent house to fit his new lifestyle. This house has become the guesthouse on the Excelsior Estate where we share the history with our guests.

Kowie and Joey went to Europe to buy furniture for their new house, but alas, they had hardly got back when the 1st World War started and the feather industry collapsed. The house was not finished yet and Excelsior was in BIG financial trouble. The ostriches were sold for biltong and Kowie started boarding race horses for a wealthy Cape Town businessman, called Willie Langerman. In 1940 he handed over the farm to his son Oscar. Who died in 1950 at the age of 79 years.

After the 2nd World War Europe's agriculture was devastated and there was a huge demand for fruit and wine. The whole district flourished. Langeberg Ko-op canning factory with its well known brand, KOO, was started in Ashton, to can peaches & apricots for the European Market. Later a private canning factory was also built. There was also a new market for wine – especially sweet muscadel - jeripigo. The whole industry prospered.

Robertson is a fortunate area in that as demand changed for certain products or animals, farmers could change to other products. Robertson is still one of the top race horse producing areas in South Africa, but also has a vibrant canning industry and a very big fresh fruit sector mostly for export. The main income however in the district is the wine farming. Wine does very well on the deep well drained limestone soils and apart from the Co-ops there are many well-known private cellars and Estates in the area. Hikers will visit 8 of these Cellars.

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