After leaving Johannesburg, Eloff started farming near Standerton. In 1897, he traveled to Switzerland and Germany with his family, but he returned to the republic little more than a year later at the outbreak of the Second Boer War in 1899, when he became a member of the Rustenburg Boer Commandos. After the end of the war, on 31 May 1902, he returned to his birthplace, Waterkloof, to farm on his house and had a castle built there. In 1912, he left with his family for Switzerland, where he was trapped during World War I. In 1919, he returned to Pretoria for good, where he spent the rest of his life.
