Matriarch of the Vineyard Hotel, Kitty Petousis, is part of the charm of one the country's oldest hotels - staff refer to her as their "secret weapon". The spritely 86-year-old talks with fondness and humour when she recalls how she and her late husband François took over the hotel in 1980.
At the time the plan was for a consortium to buy the property and build American-style "condos", with residents having access to the central hotel. François Petousis would have run the hotel. "Running that kind of business would have been hell," says Petousis firmly.
Luckily her husband was able to raise the money to buy the hotel outright, and it has been a family-run business ever since.
Petousis lives on the property in her own cottage. She loves to chat to guests, ensuring they are enjoying their stay, and word has it that she occasionally can be seen at reception taking bookings.
"I made a couple of mistakes and they diplomatically worked me out," she laughs.
She is on the hotel's art and the decor committee. Even though the decorators tend to think she's "a naive grandma", she gives her input on what she likes and dislikes. She also embroiders pieces for the rooms.
The hotel, which is celebrating its 115th anniversary this year, incorporates the cottage that belonged to the famous historian and diarist Lady Anne Barnard. She and her husband Andrew bought the property, a farm, in what became Newlands, on the southern slopes of Table Mountain. It had 22 000 vines and they named it the Vineyard.
It has subsequently changed hands and been extended many times but since 1946 it has belonged to just two owners - the Turkstra family (1946 to 1980) and currently the Petousis family.
Petousis has great appreciation for Barnard's work and is a wealth of information on her. This could be due to the two years she and her husband put into creating a gallery dedicated to Barnard after they restored the original farm house.
"It took two years out of our life. We read every book, asked publishers for permission to reproduce various works and took great pains to get informative and accurate captions. After that I took a two-week holiday in Malawi."
She and her husband went to antiques stores and auctions, bought period furniture and pieces, artworks by Jacobus Pierneef and lots of chairs.
The family is expanding the hotel once again, but once this is done, Petousis says "this is it".
The hotel's guests have ranged from poet and writer Rudyard Kipling to former President Nelson Mandela, and have included the Queen of Norway, Schabir Shaik and Mangosuthu Buthelezi and Mark Thatcher. Trevor Manuel lunches there regularly and Helen Zille likes to breakfast there.
Talking about some of the guests, she and the hotel's manager, Roy Davies, laugh as they share stories but are at great pains not to breach anyone's privacy.
She said Mandela was warm and friendly and took time to talk to the staff. "They would rush out to greet him. As for Thatcher," she says rolling her eyes, "he was extremely rude and could be heard shouting all the way in the reception area. And Shaik - he could be just as abrupt."
She puts her longevity down to good genes, a proper diet and regular exercise.
Davies says once one of the regular elderly guests, who uses a walker, was enjoying scones with cream. "She and Kitty were chatting, when Kitty pointed out that she should not be eating that. The guest replied, 'I'm 84 and I can eat what I want to.' In response Kitty wiggled her hips and said 'I'm 84 too.' "
"Hush!" she reprimands Davies. "We're giving the impression that this is an old age home."
Of late, the Vineyard has seen rooms, restaurants and facilities revamped and refurbished, with emphasis on being environmentally friendly. It has also "returned to its roots" with the planting of a symbolic vineyard on the banks of the Liesbeeck River, which borders the property.
Petousis loves the sprawling gardens with tortoises and abundant bird life. There's a Japanese garden too. "I try not to refer to it as such after I proudly showed it off to our Japanese guests and the response I got was 'Do you call that Japanese?' "
Davies said of Petousis: "She is our secret weapon."