How a homeless widow survived two world wars and a revolution to build an empire

Nyali Beach hotel that was established by Eva Noon. The facility has since been renamed Nyali Sun Africa Beach hotel and Spa. [File, Standard]

When a British couple decided to sell their home in Surrey to invest in Nakuru, little did they know this would put them asunder.

It all started in 1911 when Tom Begbie decided to migrate to Kenya in the hope that the Great Rift Valley would transform him into a millionaire. His plans were to sail out first, and then his wife and their two children would follow later.

Eight months later when Tom’s wife, Eva, disembarked from a ship in Mombasa, she was very anxious. She hoped that at long last the family would reunite with her husband, who had hopefully settled in Kenya.

But her nightmare began shortly after she landed on Kenyan soil. Her closest friend during the voyage was weeping uncontrollably. At first Eva thought she was upset because the train that was to take them from Mombasa to Nairobi delayed but she was mistaken. Truth dawned on her when a traveller informed her what everybody else around her knew. Her beloved Tom had died on October 27, 1912.

Eva‘s account is vividly recaptured in a book, Nyali Beach Hotel, The first fifty years written by Jan Hemsing.

Financial difficulties

“At first I was too distressed and unhappy to realise the very dreadful situation I was in, alone with my two children Alec and Mollie in a strange land and with very little money in my pocket...”

So dire was her situation that she could not even afford the fare from Mombasa to Nairobi as she had only one pound (Sh20) left. The tragedy thrust her into the world of unknown and unwittingly propelled her into the hospitality industry.

Eva’s first acquaintance with Nairobi was not impressive as she arrived on a miserable dull morning and found the railway station dismal. There was only one place to lodge, a dilapidated wood and iron building.

Then, there were no murrum roads and when she went to visit her husband’s final resting place at the old cemetery which was beyond the current Railway’s Golf Club, she had to cover more than six miles.

Nairobi had no electricity, refrigerators, wireless, cars and buses were unheard off and one had to either walk or ride a rickshaw (hand cart which originated from India).

Owing to her financial difficulties, Eva was forced to take her five-year-old daughter Mollie to a boarding school so that she could work at the boarding house. Her boss later sold her the business and left for England.

And this is how Salisbury Hotel was born although it would adopt this name much later.

From her account, it is apparent Nairobi’s ridiculous bureaucracy is as old as the city and so is the pollution of Nairobi River.

Although today the river’s pollution is blamed on the slum dwellers who direct raw sewer into it, at the time it was officially considered part of the sewerage system by the town planners.

When Eva, who by this time had married John Henry Smalley Noon in December 1913, tried to introduce flush toilets in her hotel, she was in rude for a shock.

“Sanitary arrangements in Nairobi at the time were very primitive. People used buckets which were collected at night by a wagon and taken down the river for disposal. There were incidences when the oxen pulling the cart were eaten by lions,” writes Hemsing

However, Eva’s plan was okayed although she still had to go through some bureaucratic red tape when she constructed a swimming pool and needed to drain the water which again had to be directed to the river.

The idea of a swimming pool was so new that the city fathers forbid Salisbury hotel from selling drinks within a certain distance, forcing the management to create another bar, while the area around the water was reserved for tea drinking.

When the First World War broke in 1914, it dealt a blow to Eva’s hotel business as the military momentarily took over the premises without compensation. The same occurred when the Second World War erupted in 1939.

By this time, Eva had expanded her empire to include Westwood Park hotel, an English-styled country club in Karen which sat on 134 acres of land and had its own lake.

After the Second World War in 1945, the Railways invited hoteliers interested in buying land in Mombasa to build a hotel which would be partly reserved for its officials who were not able to take their leave in England.

Noon was very excited by this idea but Eva, whose two hotels had been run down by the military, was against the idea. Noon forged on with the project but his wife had to step in after his health deteriorated.

By this time, Salisbury Hotel had been sold and Eva dedicated her energies in building her last hotel at Nyali in Mombasa. Shortly before Noon died, he had his wife swear that she would finish the hotel at whatever cost.

His last words were ”Eva whatever you do, get this hotel finished”, to which she replied, “Don’t worry, I will see to it that it is done... Apparently these were Noon’s last words.

Although it has been 106 years since Eva started her first hotel in Nairobi, she is best remembered in Mombasa because of Nyali Beach Hotel which has since changed hands.

The family’s name is immortalized at the heart of the hotel by Harry’s Bar, so named in honour of Noon who was variously known as Harry.

The 62 feet long oval bar stands out with its Victorian style furniture, the work of Mombasa-based Sewak Singh of Ranjodh Singh and Company of Mombasa

Was not allowed to eat

David Mwangu Tambaru, the front office manager at the establishment which has been renamed Nyali Sun Africa Beach Hotel and Spa, estimates that the hotel’s expansive kitchen has hosted about 2.8 million meals in the 72 years of its existence.

“Currently we have 350 beds in 140 rooms. If we take an average of 40,000 guests per year, this means we have hosted almost three million guests. Most of these guests are from Britain, America, Germany and South Africa. Kenyans and residents of East Africa also visit regularly”.

Just like the water which laps the hotel’s beach-front keeps changing, so has the operating environment been. A long-serving worker who retired in 1985 after 40 years explained how he and his colleagues used to walk barefoot at a time when Africans and Asians were not allowed to eat at the hotel.

James Nyamai Makosi is quoted by Hemsing explaining that although he was a cook, he was not allowed to eat at the hotel as he was given food rations to be prepared in staff quarters.

Unlike in 1914 when a resident paid Sh7 a month for hotel accommodation, today a guest residing in a three-bedroom villa seafront room in Nyali must part with Sh1.8 million per month, or Sh60,000 per night.

The rates for an ordinary room are Sh7,500 a night, meaning that if this was in 1963 when Makosi’s salary was increased to Sh516 to mark Kenya’s Independence, it would have taken him 14-and-a-half months to earn enough money to spend for a night at his place of work.  

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