Property

South Africa’s most famous 5 star hotel

Kirsten Minnaar • 10 February 2025

The Palace of the Lost City is one of South Africa’s most famous and beloved resorts. However, creating the building in the 1990s was an incredibly challenging task which took thousands of workers, R830 million, and 28 months.

Sun International founder Sol Kerzner went overseas and found two architects in America, who he brought to South Africa to design a resort in the North West Province of South Africa adjacent to the Pilanesberg National Park.

These two architects were Jerry Allison – who had worked on numerous resorts, including some for Walt Disney theme parks – and world-renowned architect James Langenheim – who had worked as an architect for celebrities like Howard Hughes and Bob Hope.

In a 1992 interview with The Architects’ Journal, Allison explained that this project was unlike anything he had ever done before.

Unlike his previous projects, which integrated existing regional architecture, this project was entirely imagined.

“In this case, no society had ever been there before, so we made up our own. The closest we’ve come to anything like this would be the work we’ve done with Disney.”

“I had some doubts at first whether we could build what my imagination first came up with, but in fact, it has turned out to be very close. For years, I had thought about what Africa really was, the mystery of it.”

“This was my first trip there. I thought there was a chance to do something that was really a fantasy. It was a case of ‘let’s find a piece of architecture, the remains of an old city that we find as explorers – and make it into a hotel’.”

The design was based on a fictional legend of a royal family that travelled from North Africa to the Valley of the Sun, where they built a magnificent city before an earthquake destroyed it, leaving only the palace behind.

At first, the design looked quite Moroccan, the landscape architect Patrick Watson explained, but Kerzner didn’t go for it.

In their next rendition, they drew a forest with some towers sticking out, and Kerzner was sold.

Building the Palace proved to be a mammoth task. Spanning 27 hectares, the resort was completed in just 28 months for R830 million.

The scale of the project was staggering. 750,000 cubic meters of earth had to be moved, and 85,000 cubic meters of rock were blasted to prepare the site.

At its peak, nearly 10,000 workers were involved in the construction, using 30 million bricks, 1.2 million plants, and 150,000 meters of piping.

The hotel required nearly 15,000 custom-made pre-cast pieces for its façades, 12km of air-conditioning, 500km of electric wiring, and 3,300 tons of steel reinforcing rods.

75,000 meters of electrical conduit was installed for the 6,500 light fittings.

“We were hoping that the African construction techniques were capable of building what we imagined – we found that they were capable of building a shell, but less capable, at first, of building the decorative elements in a manner that would keep up with the schedule,” Allison further told The Architects’ Journal.

“Their methods of precasting had been traditional, making wood moulds or steel moulds. To my knowledge there was no use of glass fibre reinforced concrete, nor of cold casting. But they picked it up very quickly.”

The interior design was equally ambitious. Fifty thousand square meters of carpet covered the floors, and 5,650 square meters of marble adorned the interiors.

Nearly every item in The Palace was custom-made, with 85% of materials sourced from Southern Africa.

Hand-carved furniture was used throughout the public areas and guest rooms, marking a first in hotel design. All bedroom doors were hand-carved, including the massive 8-meter-high doors at the royal entrance.

Art played a central role in The Palace’s design.

The six columns in the royal entrance chamber were crafted to resemble bamboo trees resting on elephant feet, topped with a protea, South Africa’s national flower.

The dome ceiling of the entrance chamber, standing 25 meters high and 16 meters in diameter, features a breathtaking African landscape painted by nine artists.

It took nearly 5,000 hours to complete, with the artists working on their backs – similar to Michelangelo’s approach in the Sistine Chapel.

Across the resort, hand-painted murals span 3,400 square meters, while the total painted area reaches an astonishing 425,000 square meters.

One of the most iconic features of The Palace is the Crystal Court’s massive chandelier, composed of 10,000 pieces of rock crystal imported from the Czech Republic.

The roof of the Crystal Court posed a unique challenge, as it spans 29 meters while supporting five floors of suites above it.

The Palace is surrounded by 25 hectares of exotic jungle and waterscapes leading down to the Valley of Waves, which opened in 1996.

The atrium also houses a life-size bronze sculpture of Shawu, a legendary bull elephant from the Kruger National Park, created by South African sculptor Danie de Jager.

Towering 4.5 meters above the ground, Shawu is one of the most photographed animal sculptures in the world.

Once the Palace opened its doors in 1992, it was an immediate hit with South Africans and tourists.

The resort is also famous for hosting plenty of celebrities such as Michael Jackson, Queen, Oprah Winfrey, and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

In 2022, the hotel underwent a full refurbishment.

The design process, by interior architectural design specialists David Muirhead and Associates, spanned numerous years, with the team giving each of the suites a new look and feel.

Originally, the report had 335 rooms, but they removed nine to accommodate the new, luxurious Royal Spa and Salon.

“As The Palace of the Lost City is an iconic destination, it was essential that we kept the hotel’s integrity, and the vision of its founder, Sol Kerzner, intact, while being sensitive to the brand’s history,” designer David Muirhead said.

“Our job was to capture its essence – the fantasy of a lost African city, and evolve it.”