Story of Stanley begins with woman called May

The Sarova Stanley was one of the first top-of-the-range hotels to be established in Kenya in 1902.

Since then, it has changed ownership three times.

The story of The Sarova Stanley begins with a tale of an enduring woman who never rested on her laurels.

Originally referred to as The Stanley, it was established by British colonial settler, Mayence “May” Bence, in 1902.
According to Glenda Riley in her 2003 book, Taking Land, Breaking Land, what was to become The Sarova Stanley hotel today had been originally a general store. The food for her hotel came from her Fort Smith farm on the outskirts of Nairobi.
In 1907, Bence married her new business partner, Fred Tate. Together, they built The New Stanley into Kenya’s best hotel. By 1912, the hotel had 60 rooms.
It opened in 1913, and the Tates called it The New Stanley Hotel.

In the 1920s, they had semi-retired to England due to poor health.

In 1932, the Tates returned to Nairobi to oversee the opening of the renowned The New Stanley Long Bar.

In 1954, the bar became the first home of the Nairobi Stock Exchange (now Nairobi Securities Exchange).

In 1937, Fred Tate died in England, but May held on to The New Stanley until 1947, when she sold it to hotelier Abraham Lazarus Block.

According to her 1980 book, the Development of Corporate Capitalism in Kenya, 1918-1977, Nicola Swainson writes that Block had arrived in Kenya as a penniless immigrant from South Africa in 1903 with his wife.

BLOCK HOTELS

However, according to his 1984 memoirs, Israel Goldstein argues that Block was so ambitious that he “planned to control Kenya within the decade of 1913 to 1923” with his commercial interests in real estate.

According to author Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye in her 2005 book, A Farm Called Kruschev, Block did this by raising money through making mattresses for The New Stanley Hotel.

In 1947, the amount he had made was enough to enable him to buy the first chain of hotels through a holding company, the Block Hotels Group.

Among them was The New Stanley. Block added the famous Grill Room, which had the popular night spots and resident band for dancing.

This venture marked the start of one of the largest catering and hotel networks in Kenya, which by the 1970s included hotels, game lodges, and air safaris.

The year 1947 was a special one for The New Stanley hotel as Princess Elizabeth and her husband, Prince Phillip, stayed there during their world tour.

THORN TREE CAFE

Abraham Block introduced the legendary Thorn Tree Café at the hotel in 1969. His sons, Jack and Tubby, entertained guests there such as Ernest Hemingway, Ava Gardener, and Edward Prince of Wales.

Block’s location in the Kenyan colonial bourgeoisie was established even before independence. He was once deputy president of The Kenya National Farmers’ Union (KNFU) and president of the Rotary Club.

It was, therefore, not surprising that the favourite entertainment spot for the colonialists was at The New Stanley Hotel.

In her book, In the Lion Den, Pat Cavendish argues that in the 1980s, the Blocks owned much of the commercial real estate and the Delameres owned much of the land.

Kenya had almost become, in the early settler days, “the kingdoms of these great and famous pioneering families”.

The Sarova Group took over the management of The New Stanley Hotel in 1998 at a price of Sh1.7 billion and refurbished it the same year.

It was renamed Sarova Stanley.

It currently has 216 rooms. Its suites and conference rooms are named after the famous personalities who have graced the place, such as Connaught Suite (after the Duke and Duchess of Connaught, who visited there in 1906), Baden-Powell, Hemingway, and Huxley conference rooms, and Churchill ballroom.