Home to the family of the last Prime Minister of the Colony of Natal, Hartford House is situated on South Africa's most famous Thoroughbred horse farm near Giant's Castle.

Chosen by the Rulers of Dubai as the location for their priceless stallions, the "gem of the Midlands" is remembered by chroniclers as one of the country's most beautiful homes, with its award-winning gardens and acclaimed fine- dining. Renowned for its stud tours and trout fishing as well as its proximity to the Midland's Meander, Weenen and Drakensberg Game and Mountain reserves and Boschhoek Golf Estate, Hartford is the home of Good Conversation, Old Whiskey and Classic Horses.

A Gold Achiever Awardee at Indaba's International Travel Show, with The Mount Nelson, The Marine, Cellars - Hohenhort, The Cape Grace, Mala Mala, Singita etc. Joint top rated restaurant in KwaZulu-Natal with Lynton Hall and Cleopatra. (Wine Magazine)

Confernce Venue:
This new facility is on world-renowned Summerhill Stud.
A scenic one-and-a-half kilometre drive from Hartford House, past the stallions and through the Avenue of Nostalgia.

Surrounded by magnificent old trees, this conference venue seats twelve delegates in boardroom style. The venue offers the usual conference requirements as well as under-floor heating and a kitchen.

We are fully serviced

• Our Award-winning Restaurant serves sumptuous breakfasts, lunches and dinners either overlooking the magnificent gardens or in the candle lit Dining Hall.
• Traditional Zulu dancers and singers perform on selected evenings
• Room service available 16 hours a day
• Laundry and valet service
• Fully equipped mini-Conference facility.
• The historic Chapel provides for weddings, baptisms and memorial services
• Personalized Stud Farm Tour of Summerhill; SA’s leading Thoroughbred Farm, includes stallions of the Rulers of Dubai
• Personal accompanied tours into the surrounding mountain, game and nature reserves by Hartford's resident guide
• Horse riding on expansive bridle paths and race tracks
• Trout and Bass fishing and a Fisherman’s Clubhouse on the lakeside
• Tennis
• New Wellness House offers a range of massages, therapeutic treatments and sauna. Overlooks the pool
• Historic gardens and pre-arranged garden seminars
• Walks on the extensive Game Conservancy; several rare wild animal and bird species inhabit the estate
• Aircraft and helicopter landing facilities

The old Foaling Barn, birthplace of so many Hartford Champions, is now the Sentinel Conference Centre; George Richards' Dairy, another pillar of the National Combined Dairies, has testified the birth at Summerhill of the winners of more than a half century of National and Provincial Championship Awards in a matter of the past dozen years, whilst the Summerhill farmstead not only hosted the British Royal Family for a period of their 1922 visit, but its verandah witnessed the acceptance of their copy of the Treaty of Vereeniging by a Commando of Boer troops at the end of perhaps the most remembered of Victoria's great wars.

The Summerhill Stallion Barn is a showcase for some of the finest Thoroughbreds in the Southern Hemisphere, most of them the property of the Maktoum's, the First Family of Dubai, who rank as the World's most successful owners of the modern era.

Our farms are the workplace of the noblest of people, the Zulus, remembered by history as the most revered of warriors and the most gifted of stockmen.

That we are custodians of one of Africa's most treasured legacies is well known to us. That we will preserve it, and leave our own little signature upon it for those that follow, is equally certain. A saunter down that Avenue of Nostalgia, those great trees planted by the Boer soldiers and Colonel Richards in 1902, tells of a sense of occasion, and the wellbeing of our Land's rich heritage.

• Mountain Game and Nature Reserves
• Zulu and Anglo-Boer War Battlefields
• Midlands Meander: Southern Africa’s favorite Arts and Crafts, Pubs and Restaurants route
• Day trip to the Artist’s capital of South Africa, Clarens, and the Golden Gate National Park
• Excellent Bushman paintings and artifacts
• Golf and Squash
• Picturesque drives and picnicking in the Ukhahlamba Drakensberg World Heritage Park
• The world-renowned Drakensberg Boys Choir
• Close proximity to major schools and Colleges; Hilton, Michaelhouse, Treverton, Weston, Clifton, Kings, St Anne’s, Cowan House etc

Accolades

• Hartford House was Nominated by the Travel Trade in South Africa and the United Kingdom as one of 23 Gold Achiever Award Winners in their 2001 AA Travel Guides Accommodation Award Programme alongside the likes of The Mount Nelson, Cape Grace, Mala Mala, Singita etc
• This destination was voted by Fair Lady as the No. 1 Romantic Rendezvous - February 2001
• The Hartford restaurant was rated by Wine Magazine as The Top Fine Dining venue in KwaZulu-Natal Natal - 2000 and 2001
• Featured as a preferred Lunch Break Destination for Conde Nast House & Garden Magazine - December 2000
• Category Winner of Diners Club Wine List of the Year competition
  in 2000, 2001 and 2002
• Style Magazine voted Hartford Restaurant as one of ten best “fireside Lunches” - July 2000
• The AA Awards at the Indaba International Travel Show proclaimed Hartford House amongst the top two Luxury Lodges in South Africa. Hartford House also won the Stalking Leopard Trophy for the Best Individual Stand at the same show amongst 4000 stands.
• The restaurant was also featured as one of only four Restaurants in the Province for “A Celebration of South African Food”.
• Hartford House was voted by Femina Magazine among the Top Special wedding Destinations Countrywide.
• Hartford House featured on the front page of “Topcar” magazine.
• Marie Claire Magazine rated Hartford as “One of Africa’s most memorable experiences”
• Cosmopolitan Magazine rated Hartford House as “South Africa’s leading Romantic Destination”
• “Hartford is truly the Gem of the Natal Midlands” Nancy Gardiner, widely acclaimed author of “Beautiful Gardens of South Africa”
• “From there you drive towards Giants Castle in the foothills of the Drakensberg Mountains and 5km’s South West is a handsome drive, lined by trees and decorated with potted Conifers, it leads to one of the country's most beautiful Houses.You have arrived. Let us return to Summerhill, (the property on which Hartford is located) which is so beautiful that if you had a broodmare you loved, it would be downright cruel to send her anywhere else.” - Sir Clement Freud, Television personality, Raconteur, Politician, Adventurer and Freelance Journalist for The Times of London and The Sporting Life.
• “It was such a great privilege to visit your magnificent farm - you undoubtedly have this country’s most beautiful stud farm “ - Gary Player
• In their only assessment in recent years, American Express counted Hartford House among their Top Five Luxury Lodges in their Southern African Classic Selection.
• Awarded 5 stars in 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005 by the Tourism Grading Council
• Diners Club Platinum award for Hartford's wine list - 2003
• Voted KZN's No.1 fine dining restaurant (Wine Magazine's Top 100 - 2002 / 2003)
• Awarded by Wine Top 100 "Natal's only 5 star Wine list"
• Earned an incredible 24.5 out of 25 stars in Wine Magazine’s appraisal in 2004.