Top resort has changed names and ownership several times since 1938

By Standard Reporter

Nanyuki, Kenya: The Fairmont Mt Kenya Safari Club in Nanyuki has a checkered history, which its plush imported carpets that cushion one’s feet against the hardwood floors of its rooms cannot hide.

In 1938, Gabriel Prud’homme and Rhoda Lweisson bought the land hosting the hotel from Myra Wheeler after the death of Percy ‘Bongo’ Smith and turned it into their dream home.

The two constructed one large building, on Lweisson’s insistence, as she wanted everyone under the same roof. She named the house Mawingo, Swahili name for clouds, which often skirted the slope of Mt Kenya. The original building can still be recognised and extends to where Tusks Restaurant at the hotel is today.

Wealthy owner

The Prud’hommes Mount Kenya lasted just a year before the onset of World War II shattered it in 1939, after which Lweisson returned to New York. Gabriel intended to return Mawingo to Lweisson but he forgot to sign his will before he died tragically in a plane crash. Mawingo was reverted to his family. The home lay dormant for a year and it was auctioned by Lazarus ‘kappie’ Kaplan, Gabriel’s lawyer.

Mawingo was bought in 1948 by Abraham “Tubby” Block, who extended it and named it Mawingo Hotel. Block also owned the Block Hotels, whose flagship institution was Norfolk Hotel in Nairobi city centre, one of the very first sites of a terror attack in modern day Kenya.

In 1959, movie star and film director William Holden stayed at Mt Kenya Safari Club with his friends Ray Ryan and Carl Hirschmann. They were in the middle of a shooting safari and Ryan sustained a cut in the eye from a gun recoil and, thus, needed to recuperate.

The three succumbed to Mawingo’s charm and bought the property and turned it into one of the most unusual and exclusive clubs in the world, The Mount Kenya Safari Club.

Winston Churchill, Ernest Hemmingway, Bing Crosby, Charlie Chaplin, John Travolta, Steve McQueen and Conrad Hilton, to name but a few, often frequented the club.

William Holden died in 1981 after tripping whilst intoxicated and hitting his head on a table in unclear circumstances. Holden’s death brought in an unusually wealthy new owner — Adnan Kashoggi. Kashoggi, the Saudi-born millionaire has been linked with almost every money-making venture in the world — legal or otherwise- from commodities and drugs trade, gunrunning and brokering multi-million dollar deals between governments and separatists groups, all of which he has denied.

Celebrities

The eccentric Saudi millionaire is said to have hosted A-list celebrities during his tenure as owner of the hotel, where he also held legendary parties, which often lasted for days.

The Fairmont Mt Kenya Safari Club is only one of dozens of such properties he owned the world over. Since 2007, Israeli-owned Fairmont Group does the day-to-day running of the hotel. It is not clear whether Fairmont runs it or it bought off Kashoggi. The Fairmont, under family patriarch Charles Sczlapak, also bought out the Block Hotels.

Fairmont took over the Mount Kenya Safari Club in 2007 and after several million-dollar refurbishments transformed the facility into the five-star hotel it is today.