For close on 170 years reports have circulated about Kronendal’s “friendly ghost.” The most recently recorded sighting was just before Christmas, 1999, but there could have been other sightings since, which have not been reported in the media.

The legend of the ghost dates back to 1840, about 40 years after the present gabled manor house was built around 1800.

The story goes that the manor house and Kronendal farm were owned for a short time during that period by the Cloete family.

The owner, Daniel Cloete, had a very pretty daughter, Elsa. She fell in love with a soldier from a British garrison stationed in Hout Bay. However, their love was forbidden since he was British and she was Dutch.

Kronendal under renovation during the 1st quarter of 2007

The closest contact they had was at secret meetings at the front windows of the homestead. Eventually, in desperation, the soldier hanged himself from one of the oak trees in the avenue across the road from Kronendal that can still be seen today. Elsa, it is said, died of a broken heart.

Around sunset, they say, you can sometimes see a man standing among the oaks looking longingly at the Kronendal building and every so often there is a young woman wearing an old-fashioned blue dress looking out of one of the windows. Elsa’s ghost has also been seen frequently in the building itself.

In 1999, during a time when the Kronendal building was being used as a restaurant, the owners at that time took to setting a table for two for Elsa, which they did not allow anyone else to use.

On Tuesday, December 15, a visitor from England – an architect – saw a woman dressed in a blue top, grey pinafore and a bonnet. He remarked to his wife: “What a funny hat that woman is wearing.”

He watched the woman sit down at the table, then she got up and walked to the scullery.

According to Pia Pameissl, the public relations officer for the restaurant at that time, the English visitor thought she was the apparition and had dressed up to play a practical joke on him and his wife.

“I convinced him I had not done so and then I told him the legend of Elsa,” said Pia. “We all thought he was joking about seeing her and we asked him how much he had had to drink. But his amazement was too real to be faked.”

Since the 1970s there have been at least five documented sightings of Elsa’s ghost, reported in local newspapers and magazines.