Fancourt, where this month's Presidents Cup is to be played, is a lush, manicured, 4-course golfers paradise comparable with any luxury golf estate in the world, but where did its story begin and who helped to make it what it is Today?
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Put in a nutshell, the estate's historians say it's story is of a family home that has grown and grown - and never stopped - but to get back to it's beginnings...
It all stared when Henry Fancourt White built a country house in Blanco at the foot of the Outeniqua Mountains, near George on the southern coast of South Africa between Cape Town and Port Elizabeth, in the pioneers days when the country was being opened up by hardy souls using wagons pulled by oxen.
Built in the style of a Cotswold mansion, Blanco House developed slowly but successfully from 1859, but unfortunately Henry White was not to enjoy its completed comforts for very long.
A wealthy man initially, he was to suffer a major financial setback in 1860 and died soon after.
When Blanco House was put up for auction it was described in historical records as 'a thatched-roof, double-story building with ten airy rooms, kitchen, pantry, outbuildings'.
The property went to Henri de Maraliac, Robert Drummond and M.J. Adams, the latter renaming it Homewood in 1879.
At a second public auction in 1903, Homewood was sold to Ernest Montagu White, who fittingly renamed the house 'Fancourt' in memory of his father - Henry Fancourt White, it's very first owner.
Ernest White, or Montagu as he was known, spent the English winters at Fancourt.
He made extensive improvements to the house, using the wonderful array of camphor woods, yellow woods, stinkwoods and other indigenous timber from forests in the area.
Always immaculately dressed - a Panama hat and flower in his buttonhole were his trademarks - Montagu inspected his estate from a white-canopied cart drawn by a red ox.
He painted watercolors, knotted rugs and lived the life of a country gentleman, but in 1916 tragedy struck as Montagu, his sister and a friend succumbed to mushroom poisoning and died at Fancourt after enjoying a dinner of wild mushrooms picked by Montagu himself earlier in the day.
The house stood empty for two years after the family catastrophe - although, it is believed, even to this day, that the deceased Montagu and Elizabeth continued to visit their much-loved home.
The ghostly rumours did not prevent one, Rubin Greer, from next purchasing Fancourt in 1918.
It is said that the Greer family, which included four daughters, brought music and laughter back to Fancourt, but that the performance of the band members at their dances depended on the liquid refreshment they consumed.
Too little and they refused to play, too much and they were unable to play.
Numerous owners followed, and a century after Henry Fancourt White built his home, it had fallen into a sad state of disrepair due to sheer neglect.
A Dr. Krynauw bought Fancourt in 1960 and his money, skill and superb taste, helped to restore the property as 'a symbol of high-class living once again'.
But not for long.
In 1969 Fancourt was sold to a property developer - who promptly went into liquidation.
Andre and Helene Pieterse became the new owners and in 1987 they decided to transform their country house into a hotel and golf estate, and the Fancourt Hotel opened in grand style on 23 March 1989.
But again it was only for three or four years.
By July 1993, Fancourt was once again on the market and in 1994 a wealthy German couple, Hasso and Sabine Plattner, bought the estate out of liquidation.
Expansion and development proceeded at a furious pace as the hotel expanded, lodges and houses blossomed like the estate's abundant mixture of flowers, trees and lakes and it's original golf course grew into four, the third one after Outeniqua and Montagu being the tough, Gary Player-designed Links Course where the Presidents Cup is to be fought for between The USA and a rest-of-the-world International team from November 20 to 23.
The heart of Fancourt is now the modern clubhouse, but the old Manor House will always hold its soul.
The official Presidents Cup web site says "When you visit the estate, spend time in the stillness of the reading room, walk along the quiet passages. Imagine life as it was then, with Panama hats and buttonholes, with grand pianos, campher-wood kists, old silver and wild mushroom dinners.
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