The Rivalry History of the Stanley Hotel in Nairobi
The Sarova Stanley Hotel in the Nairobi City Center was for ages known as The New Stanley.
Why then was it being described as ‘new’ for over 100 years? And who was this Stanley?
Well, the Sarova, which is Kenya’s second largest hotel chain, was acquired by the families of former Kirinyaga Member of Parliament, John Ngata Kariuki and the ‘Chani’ Vohra in 1978.
But in the beginning, the Stanley hotel essentially belonged to a dainty woman, a milliner named Mayence Bent who founded it in 1905 when Kenya was still a geographical expression.
In his 2002 effort, Malachite Lion: A Travel Adventure in Kenya, American ecologist Dr Richard Modlin informs us that the Stanley Hotel was “one of the newest corrugated metal shacks” established by Mayence who was employed by Tommy Wood, a Jack of all trades.
Wood ran a general shop and hardware along Victoria Street (which is today known as Tom Mboya Street) in a building bought from Armenian shopkeeper Mesrop MacJohn.
Besides the general shop, the future Mayor of Nairobi opened the Victoria Hotel under Mayence in 1901.
Mayence operated a dressmaking business nearby and Tommy’s shop stocked her clothes.
Interestingly, Mayence’s hubby, William Stanley Bent, was a railway worker, farmer and an agent of The East African Standard who supplied produce to Wood’s hotel from his 42-acre shamba in Fort Smith.
Fort Smith is currently called Kiambu.
Mayence and Tate renamed theirs The New Stanley.
Fred Tate died in 1937.
Ten years later, in 1947, Mayence sold The New Stanley to Abraham of the famous Block Hotels chain.
Quite a feat, considering Abraham had immigrated to Kenya in 1903 to escape the Boer War in South Africa, arriving in Nairobi with nothing more than “two Basuto ponies, sacks of potatoes, linseed, peas, beans, a gold watch, a change of clothes and 20 pounds,” as Errol Trzebinski informs us in her 1988 book,
The Kenyan Pioneers.
Abraham died in 1965, but his wife Sarah and their children – Rita, Jack, Tubby and Ruth Block – expanded the empire to include East African Industries (today Unilever), Farmer’s Choice, Business Machines and Afro-Swiss Engineering, but the scope has gradually changed.
Abraham’s grandchildren did not disappoint: Jeremy Block owns Dorman’s Coffee, while Geraldine Dunford’s family run the Tamarind Group, of which Nairobi’s famous Carnivore Restaurant is the flagship brand.
But from that act of vengeance in 1905, the Sarova Stanley now comprises the Sarova Stanley and Sarova Panafric in Nairobi, Sarova Whitesands Beach Resort and Spa at the North Coast, Sarova Lion Hill in Nakuru, Sarova Taita Hills and Sarova Salt Lake Game Lodge in Taita Taveta, Sarova Mara in the Maasai Mara, England’s The Bull (dating back to 1688), The Abbey’s and The Rembrandt in the heart of London.
The Sarova Stanley, a member of Historic Hotels Worldwide, has suites bearing names of his famous patrons, including Ernest Hemingway, Elspeth Huxley, Windsor, Karen Blixen, Lord Delamere, Tate and Henry Morton Stanley.
Why is it called the ‘New Stanley Hotel?”
After the Great Fire of Victoria Street in 1904 destroyed Mayence Bent’s wooden Stanley Hotel, she needed an immediate place to accommodate her guests. She therefore moved them into an unused railway building on Government Road until a proper replacement could be built.
In 1912 to 1913, Mrs. Bent and her husband, Frederick Tate, commissioned Robertson, Gow & Davidson to design a larger, purpose-built hotel on Delamere Avenue.
They intended to transfer the Stanley Hotel name to the new premises.
However, the original site had been sold to Daniel William Noble, Nairobi’s former postmaster.
Noble successfully sued to retain the rights to the Stanley Hotel name for the old building, which thereafter became known as the Old Stanley Hotel. As a result, the Tates were legally obliged to call their new establishment the New Stanley Hotel