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Mathoto Tlokotsi, Product Owner
 


De Home Ekhaya Guesthouse

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One of ten children, Mathoto Tlokotsi’s childhood home almost always seemed to have dozens of family and friends sleeping over. Plus there was the fact that her father was a taxi driver who often put his customers up at his home in Bethlehem in the eastern Free State.

“In our culture there are so many occasions when families get together; weddings, funerals, headstone unveilings, church events, and it seemed like all the time there were people staying at our house,” says Mathoto. “Unlike my siblings, I always loved the excitement of having people to stay, and I loved catering for them. Without realising it, I was developing a passion for hospitality.”

After qualifying as a librarian at the University of the North, Mathoto returned to the eastern Free State, working in local government as an information-management specialist. When she was involved with one particular project, which exposed her to the work of several municipal departments including those doing community development, Mathoto felt her old passion for hospitality stirring again. “While I worked at the municipality I’d always wanted to go out on my own. I just had to be independent and go on my own.”

In 2006 a house came on the market in Harrismith, where Mathoto lived. She bought the house and spent two years fixing it up. After giving up her job to follow her entrepreneurial dream, Mathoto invested her payout in the house. As she says: “The only thing standing between me and poverty is the guesthouse. I had to make it work; I had no other choice.”

Eventually, in February 2008 the house, transformed into a stunning boutique guesthouse and now called De Home Ekhaya, opened for business. Mathoto’s husband is a building contractor so he helped carry out what was a very extensive and very expensive renovation. The design, Afro-chic at its best, was all Mathoto’s inspiration. “I’m not afraid to say that we have a very beautifully decorated guesthouse,” Mathoto says. “People booking here for the first time are often amazed at how beautiful it is. It’s often not what they expected to find in Harrismith.

Explaining the look and feel of her guesthouse – the first in Harrismith to be owned by a black person – Mathoto says De Home Ekhaya “gives you the feeling of being in a hotel – except that you’re not going to bump into anyone in the passage on the way to your room because you have your own entrance. De Home Ekhaya is a place where the African meets the modern but most importantly it’s a home from home for everyone.”

The guesthouse has seven bedrooms, all en-suite, all with showers and baths. There is ample parking, and closed-circuit TV is just aspect of the guesthouse’s extensive security arrangements. Just how well Mathoto has made De Home Ekhaya work in a short space of time is reflected in the fact that a bare six months after opening, the guesthouse was awarded four stars by the grading council. Rates start from R400 single and R600 per couple, breakfast included.

Stunning design, great cuisine and superbly-appointed rooms aside, one of De Home Ekhaya’s most important selling points is its location; just off South Africa’s busiest national road, the N3 that connects the province of Gauteng with KwaZulu-Natal and Durban. Two-and-a-half to three hours outside of Johannesburg, Harrismith is a popular stopping-off point for motorists, and the area is one of rare natural beauty. Nearby is the picture-postcard village of Clarens, the stupendous Golden Gate and the stunning scenery of Van Reenen’s Pass and Swinburne. Harrismith is also less than 50km from QwaQwa, a regular destination particularly for government officials but one which lacks top-class accommodation.

TEP, she says, “has come to me at just the right time; when I needed them most”. She explains that the partnership has been invaluable in helping to put such a new business on the map.
Becoming an Eteya finalist Mathoto describes simply as being “just so wonderful”. The exposure, she says humbly, “has made me. I’ve suddenly become a role model in my community; people are looking up to me. It’s been difficult to convince black people to think that they can go into hospitality and make a success of it. Now they can see that it really is possible; that anything is possible.”
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