Previously Lord Fraser Guest House was the summer residence of the well-known Lord Ian Fraser of Lonsdale. He was a pilot in the Second World War, but his plane was shot down in combat and he was blind as a result of his injuries. He got married to the nurse who cared for him while he was recuperating from his injuries, and they used to visit South Africa during summer. He was the chairman of the once powerful retail business Frasers, who was based in Lesotho.

With his death in 1974, Lord Fraser wished his home to become the Ian Fraser Memorial College. After the closing down of Fraser’s Head Office in Wepener in 1988, the buildings were donated to the municipality to be converted into a museum. This never materialised and the property was sold to Willem and Wilna Swanepoel in 1993 and they have turned it into the present Lord Fraser Guest House at great expense.