The revenge of Mt Kenya's desecrated shrine

By Gakuu Mathenge

Beneath the green canopies of Mt Kenya Forest - also known in some local languages as the Mountain of God - lies quiet mysteries that continue to baffle many.

On the snow capped mountain peaks are numerous terns, some of them used by the Kikuyu as sacred shrines for communion with God, especially during times of adversity.

Unesco recently designated the area as a World Heritage Site.

Despite the rich heritage only a few elders, the seers, know the specific terms they use for religious purposes.

Mt Kenya Safari Club

According to Samuel Kamitha, the specific location of Kikuyu shrines, Kigongoona Kia Maai or water tabernacle, are only known to the elders who go there to conduct spiritual rites.

Few shrines have baffled many like an ancient glade – an open natural clearing inside a thick forest - where the world renown Mt Kenya Safari Club was build almost a century ago.

Beginning of the tale

The story of the hotel — documented in the book Paradise Lost, by Lucinda De Laroque, Mohamed Amin and Duncan Willets — is amazing and tragic.

However, the book does not mention that the section of the forest where the original hotel was build was a Kikuyu shrine known as Karura.

Elders point out the hotel was build despite their opposition, something they claim has led to tragedies and misfortunes that have since stalked several owners for allegedly desecrating the Karura shrine near Nanyuki.

The land on which the hotel is build was first acquired from the British colonial government in 1935.

The lands office in Nyeri granted a settler, Mr Eric Sydney Percy, 5,390 acres of Mt Kenya Forest near Nanyuki on which the shrine stood.

The deeds were issued on September 30,1935.

Legend has it the officer who granted the title deed, died soon after.

Soon, Percy’s girlfriend Ms Myra Wheeler and a daughter, Hannah, joined him and they erected a home near their newly acquired piece of land. Percy embarked on game hunting and game and trophy export business to European zoos.

However, during one of his trips to Rome in 1937, he got involved in a bar brawl and was his hit on the head by a French sailor and died instantly. His remains were cremated and the ashes brought back on Myra’s request. She over flew around the mountain and scattered the ashes in the forest.

On January 21, 1938, Myra sold the land to a wealthy American divorcee Rhoda Lewisohn and her French boyfriend, Gabriel Prud’homme, and left Kenya.

William Holden and Ray Rayan owned the hotel in 1959

It is Rhoda and Gabriel who put up the first big building on the land, which they Christened Mawingu and would later evolve into Mt Kenya Safari Club. On the onset of the World War II, Gabriel was required to enlist with the French Free Air Force and flew to France while Rhoda returned home in the US.

After the War, Gabriel returned to Mawingu but in 1947, he was involved in a fatal air crash in Khartoum, Sudan. For the second time within a decade, two owners of the land had died tragically.

The Mawingu home was left without an owner since Gabriel’s parents had died of pneumonia during the war.

In early 1950s, the executioners of Gabriel’s will sold Mawingu to a Nairobi businessman of the Jewish extraction, Mr Jack Block at an auction. The Blocks then also owned several key hotels in Nairobi. However, after incurring heavy expenses renovating Mawingu into a hotel, the Mau Mau war broke out and game hunting and tourism business was badly disrupted. Block made no profit on his investment.

In 1959, three wealthy game hunters arrived on the scene and expressed interest in buying the property. They were, Mr William Holden — a Hollywood big shot —, wealthy gambler Ray Ryan and a Swiss financier Carl Hirschmann.

The trio transformed the club into a wildly successful phenomenon that was patronised by the rich and the famous from around the world of business, politics and entertainment.

The lot is credited with putting Kenya on the global tourist map as a worthy destination throughout the 1960s and 1970s.

In October 18, 1977, Ryan died in a bomb explosion in his car outside the Olympia Health and Beauty Resort in Evansville, California. He was 73. His widow, Hellen, flew around the club and scattered his ashes around the mountain. FBI and Interpol have never been able to resolve Ryan’s mysterious death to date.

In 1980, Holden died when he fell and cracked his skull at his home in Santa Monica, California.

He was alone and bled to death and his guard discovered the body after four days. He was 63.

Block too died mysteriously while riding a boat on a holiday in the Indian Ocean in the 1980s.

A Saudi arms dealer, Mr Adnan Khashoggi bought the hotel from the Americans in 1977. But the last that was heard of him was that his empire had collapsed.