Sleeping beauty

WORDS Malibongwe Tyilo

In the VISI 67 Country edition we wrote about how Hästens pull out all the stops when making their beds – down to lining them with horsehair! Well, actions speak louder than words, so we sent our editor-at-large Malibongwe Tyilo to the Taj Hotel in Cape Town to “test sleep” a Hästens bed. Here’s his account.

Spending a night in the Hästens suite at the Taj Hotel in Cape Town recently, I slept like royalty, literally. Hästens beds are, after all, the cribs of choice for the Swedish royal court. 

The Swedish bed manufacturers have been making beds by hand since 1852. Forget memory foam, these beds are made using natural materials including horsehair, flax, pinewood, pure cotton and wool. For a closer look at the process and materials that go into the beds, get yourself a copy of VISI 67.

Considering that you can expect to pay at least R34 000 for a single bed and a minimum of R67 000 for king size, going all the way up to six-digit territory, I was quite excited (and mildly skeptical) to try one of these out.

The Hästens suite at the Taj is made up of two bedrooms with a lounge, dining area, two bathrooms, three flatscreen TVs and three balconies for an enviable view of the city, and its best-known feature, Table Mountain. It also helps that the Taj is located dead bang in the city centre. I’ve travelled quite a bit myself and slept in many a hotel room, locally and internationally, admittedly on a budget, and walking into the room, I had that “so this is how the other half does it” moment.

The bed in the suite is part of the 2000T range, which Hästens rates as one of their most exclusive beds. Hyperbole aside, when you lie down on this bed, it feels as though it is lifting you back up, as though it is rising up to meet you, and just to make sure it wasn’t all in my head I got up and jumped up and down on the bed as though it was a trampoline! While the bed is much softer than a trampoline, it kept pushing me back, while the books I’d put on the other side of the bed lay stacked up, undisturbed. 

I took my partner with me for the experience, a partner who has snored loudly every night for the past six years, exacerbating my insomnia. Night owl that I am, I stayed up a couple of hours after my partner slept and, for the first time in six years, all I heard next to me was the sound of soft gentle breathing – no snoring whatsoever. I actually forced myself to stay up longer, waiting for the snoring, and nothing. 

If there was still any skepticism left in me, that was the moment it left. As for my rather average bed at home, sans horsehair, its days are numbered.

Get VISI 67 in selected retail outlets or get the digital edition online now.

As if that’s not enough, there’s also a free downloadable winter recipe book to accompany the edition with contributors including Jacques Erasmus from Hemelhuijs, Abigail Donnelly from Taste magazine and the Living Life Station Café.