Visiting Quiet Mountain Country House is like stepping into another era. This idyllic guesthouse at the foot of the Magaliesberg mountain range is just an hour's drive from Johannesburg, and is the perfect antidote to everything that city life offers. Your stay here will be marked by warm hospitality, pure relaxation, and lovingly homemade meals. Find out more and make a booking here.

The first impression 

A house with history 

Quiet Mountain is a country house, not a hotel. It’s inviting and warm, from the lush gardens with their pathways that invite you to explore to its lounge filled with a thoughtful selection of books, the owners’ antique furniture, and many souvenirs of a life much larger than the countryside.

Spread across the property are seven suites, with the dining room and lounge located in the original farm homestead, which is said to date back to the late 1800s. The small gabled cottage was built in 1932, and the main house was once a tobacco-drying shed.

Owners Terence Barker  and John Nelson-Berg  have spent the past 40 years restoring and reimagining Quiet Mountain with extraordinary care. As young men, they made the decision to build a life in the countryside, and this is the place that drew them. Quiet Mountain feels deeply personal: antique wood furniture, polished brass fittings, wide verandas, and fireplaces that speak of winter evenings. Objects abound that tell stories of other worlds and add layers of history. The pair are collectors, and there’s something quite special about being in a place where all the decor wasn’t ordered at one time from the same place. 

The landscape

The farm stretches across 150 hectares of indigenous bush, and the land climbs up the mountain. Being 700 metres lower than Johannesburg, the climate is milder. Mornings are crisp, afternoons gentle. This is a place for long walks, chasing butterflies, reading, writing, pausing next to trickling water features, getting lost in the garden, taking in the mountains from a well-placed bench, or listening under the arched trees to the sounds of rich birdsong.

Meals worth the drive 

Dining here is a slow, considered affair, with dinner and breakfast included. Everything is home-made or sourced locally. Jersey cows on the farm produce the rich milk that goes into the homemade butter, yoghurt, and cream. You can even buy some of these to take home. Vegetables and herbs are mostly grown on-site, and eggs are bought from a nearby chicken farmer.

The food is fresh, tasty, and wholesome. Dinner is a set menu with choices, three courses served on fine crockery and with plenty of silverware, inviting you to linger. This is no place to rush anything. The dining here is only open to in-house guests, so no day trippers are to be seen.

John is front of house each night, and slowly you’ll find yourself looking forward to a light catch-up about the day with him. Dinner is preceded by a gathering in the adjoining lamplit lounge for a drink, and in our case, a backgammon tournament.

Our cottage

Home for the weekend was a comfortable and inviting bed in a two-room cottage with an immense bathroom en-suite and a roomy bath. A fireplace in the lounge was prepped for easy lighting, and outside the front door, the veranda beckoned for autumn afternoons. Our arrival on a late Friday afternoon was greeted with homemade scones, jam, and cream, along with tea on a pretty tray, delivered quietly to our door. It was an autumn weekend when the temperature had a sudden drop in the evening, but every room was thoughtfully warmed for pure comfort. 

Gracious hosts 

Terence, John, and their team are present in the way that matters most. They don’t hover; rather, they stay tuned in. Across the property are a series of intercoms that invite you to just press a button for service. It’s like magic. There’s even one at the swimming pool, when the need for a cold drink and a lunch toastie or salad arises. You’ll be greeted by name, they’ll remember how you take your coffee, and they’ll somehow manage to make the experience feel entirely your own. It's no wonder they have a loyal return guest list, one that spans generations, and the kind of reviews that read like love letters.

Steeped in the mountain's time