The Saxon Hotel, Villas & Spa

Johannesburg's most private address.

The Saxon sits behind high walls in Sandhurst, less than ten minutes from Sandton, in ten acres of gardens. Before it was a hotel it was the private home of the businessman Douw Steyn, and it was here that Nelson Mandela stayed after his release from prison and edited Long Walk to Freedom. He remained a regular guest once the house became a hotel; his photographs and a pencil portrait still hang in the building, and the Nelson Mandela Platinum Suite is named in his honour.

The property is made up of suites in the main house and three villas in the gardens. Villa One holds seven Villa Luxury Suites of around 80 square metres; Villas Two and Three are two-storey, with four Villa Presidential Suites of 200 square metres upstairs, and each villa can be taken in its entirety. Qunu, the restaurant, is named after Mandela's adopted home village and cooks locally inspired food from sustainably sourced ingredients; the Terrace and Olive Bar sit by the pool, the Piano Lounge serves breakfast and afternoon tea, and two underground cellars host private tastings and dinners. The Saxon Spa works with water: hammam, sound therapy and rhassoul mud rituals.

It is a member of The Leading Hotels of the World and holds a Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star rating for 2026, and it has been named the world's leading boutique hotel more times than any other property in Africa.

The partnership

Hospitality Classics has supplied the hospitality trade from Johannesburg since 1972. We make three ranges of our own, Elements, Soak and Botánico, and we import Molton Brown from London for the trade in Africa. For a property like this one the work is less about a single product than about a standard: a room set that is right for the guest, delivered on time, in the sizes and quantities housekeeping needs, every week of the year.

That means hotel sizes alongside full retail formats, consistent fragrance across bath, body and hair care, and packaging that can carry the property's own identity. It also means an account manager who knows the hotel, forecasts with it around peak season, and keeps the back-of-house stocked without the property having to think about it.