Groote Schuur (pronounced [ˈɣroːtə ˈsxyːr]; Dutch for 'big shed') is an estate in Cape Town, South Africa.

Groote Schuur was later acquired by William De Smidt, and remained in the family's possession until it was sold by Abraham De Smidt, Surveyor General of the Cape Colony, in 1878, and was bought by Hester Anna van der Byl of the prominent Van Der Byl / Coetsee family.

Farther away from the house on the slopes of Devil's Peak, Rhodes kept antelopes, zebra, eland, wildebeest and ostriches.

Located within walking distance of Groote Schuur, The Woolsack was used as a guest house by Rhodes, most notably hosting the noted British poet and writer Rudyard Kipling when he used to visit Cape Town for his winter holidays between 1898 and 1908.

[6] By then known as the Poet of the Empire, Kipling would become a friend of Rhodes during this period and wrote poetry and newspaper articles in support of the British cause in the Boer War and the formation of the Union of South Africa.

[8] In May 1956, Time magazine reported, "a party was held at Groote Schuur for South Africa's Nationalist Prime Minister Johannes Strydom after he had won the parliamentary campaign to continue white supremacy in a land of 2.6 million whites and 10 million nonwhites.

After reaching the house, they began to sing old Boer war songs—the Volksliederen of the Transvaal and Orange Free State.

'"[9] The building was the site for the signing of the historic "Groote Schuur Minute" between Nelson Mandela, of the African National Congress (ANC), and F. W. De Klerk, the then State President of the Republic of South Africa, on 4 May 1990.