La Residence Franschoek

Hotel Description

Not only has Liz Biden transformed Birkenhead House and Royal Malewane into South Africa's most sought-after private hotels, but she has performed the same trick with her private country residence hotel, La Residence in the Cape Winelands. And whilst this much-loved hideaway was generally considered a work of art, last year La Residence was redesigned and even relocated, now standing 600 metres away from its original location on a private 30-acre estate in the Franschhoek Valley. The brand new villa at its heart has been built in the same regal Tuscan style as its predecessor, yet this time it houses eleven ultra-luxurious suites, each one conceived by Liz's masterly interior designer Ralph Krall. Yet just as it was before, the pace of life here is deliciously slow, doing a lap of the swimming pool about as energetic as it ever gets. The cuisine, of course, is still sublime; the service about as attentive as it gets.