The Hardimans
& the Deep South

How It Started

The family connection to Simon’s Town didn’t begin with a property search or a lifestyle decision. It began, as these things often do, with people who simply couldn’t stay away. The draw of False Bay — the particular quality of light on the water in the early morning, the smell of fynbos after winter rain, the penguins waddling across the path to the beach — has a way of making itself felt in the bones.

For the Hardiman family, Simon’s Town was always the place you came back to. As children, as young adults, and eventually as a family with children of our own — the town kept pulling us south down the M3, past Muizenberg, past Fish Hoek, until the naval dockyard appeared around the last bend in the road.

13 Thomas Street

The house on Thomas Street has its own history within ours. It sits on the slope above the main road, high enough for mountain views to one side and glimpses of the harbour to the other. The garden has seen children grow up, summers spent under its shade, and the particular kind of unhurried time that the peninsula seems to produce.

We’ve cared for the house the way you care for something you love: slowly, thoughtfully, without rushing to modernise what doesn’t need it. The result is a home that feels lived-in in the best sense — comfortable, personal, with a character that no amount of staged interior design could replicate.

Why We Share It

When we began thinking about making the house available to guests, the conversation was less about rental income and more about stewardship. A house like this wants to be used. It wants people sitting on the stoep in the late afternoon, walking down to Boulders Beach in the morning, cooking in the kitchen, arguing gently about which restaurant to try.

We also know, from long experience, that not every visitor to Simon’s Town finds what we’ve found here. The hotels are fine, but they don’t give you a garden, or a proper kitchen, or the quiet of a residential street rather than the bustle of the waterfront. We wanted to offer something different — the experience of actually living in the town, even briefly, rather than just passing through it.

What Guests Can Expect from Us

We are hands-on owners, not a management company. When you stay at Thomas Street House, you’re dealing with us directly — a real family who knows the property intimately, who can tell you which restaurants to book months ahead and which you can walk into on a Tuesday night, who knows the best time to visit Boulders to avoid the school groups, and where to park when the main road is jammed on a long weekend.

Our recommendation is the same one we give friends and family: slow down. The Cape Peninsula rewards the unhurried visitor. Give yourself at least a week — ideally two. Wake up without an itinerary and see where the day takes you. The penguins will still be there tomorrow.

A Note on the Name

You may have heard the phrase “the Deep South” used to describe the Simon’s Town area — the far end of the Cape Peninsula, below the mountains and the passes, where the road eventually runs out at Cape Point. It’s a half-joke about the distance from Cape Town (closer to an hour on a bad day than the 40 minutes the map suggests), but it’s also a genuine description of character. The Deep South has its own rhythm, its own community, its own eccentric pride. We wouldn’t have it any other way.