It is speculated that Granger Bay where the Cape Town Hotel School is situated was the landing site of Jan Van Riebeeck in 1652. Maps dated 1675 indicate Green Point as the name for this area. In 1737 a freak gale caused 9 ships and 200 lives to be lost which stimulated the construction of a mole, or breakwater at Green Point. Building began in 1743 on the mole, which was to be constructed 300 metres long x 30 metres wide, under Governor Swellengrebel, but was never completed due to bad weather and high costs. The mole (the foundations of which can still be seen at low water in front of the lighthouse) gave the point its present name Mouille Point.

The first lighthouse at Mouille Point was a pyramidal structure and this was completed in July 1842 near the military battery, which was built by French troops in 1781. The Green Point lighthouse, 1km to the west of Mouille Point, was constructed in 1824 and had twin lights.

Captain Robert Granger, a merchant, a shipping agent and a ship owner, lived near the lighthouse and performed his heroic rescue of passengers and crew from the shipwrecked schooner “Miner” in February 1857. He was presented with a lamp modelled on the style of the Green Point lighthouse as his reward.

A second Mouille Point lighthouse, painted with alternate red and white horizontal bands on a round shaft 30 feet high, was completed in January 1865 at a cost of £800. Its light could be seen for 10 miles and was finally extinguished in 1908. The base can be seen in front of the present Cape Technikon building and is preserved as a monument.

In the mid-19th century Granger Bay was predominantly fishing area where whalers landed their catches, and the Cape Canning Company had its factory. In addition, Captain Granger’s home was a prominent landmark, as was the Mouille Point Battery, which stood defending the approaches to the port of Cape Town. Records show that some 29 ships were lost near Mouille Point and the remains of one wreck, the Thens, lost in 1865 can still be seen to the west of this property on the rocks at Mouille Point. In 1862 the whole area was opened for development with the constructions of Beach Road along the coast and a road across the Green Point common, where a racecourse was positioned. In 1966, on the original site of Captain Granger’s home, a purpose-designed building, with a harbour, was built by the South African Merchant Navy Academy “General Botha” and all training of Merchant naval Officers moved from the Naval Base at Gordon’s Bay to Granger Bay. Shortly after the move the trainees were involved with the rescue of passengers and crew from the “A Seafarer” which went aground at Green Point in June of that year.

The Academy remained operational on the Granger Bay site until 30 June 1990, when it was integrated into the Cape Technikon as the Department of Maritime Studies to share the campus with the newly formed Cape Town Hotel School.

Redevelopment of the Granger Bay campus started in June 1994 and the area now comprises a Water Club Marina, an office block, a hotel and timeshare block, an upgraded Cape Technikon Survival Centre, Maritime Studies, and the Cape Town Hotel School. Consequently, the former Cape Technikon and Peninsula Technikon in the Western Cape merged to become the Cape Peninsula University of Technology in 2006.