page_title: Stanley Hotel, Nairobi
section_title: Notable residents and tenants
hierarchical_section_title: Stanley Hotel, Nairobi / Notable residents and tenants
caption_attribution_description: Ernest Hemingway on safari, Africa. January, 1934.
context_page_description: The Stanley Hotel is a five-star hotel in Nairobi, Kenya. It is the oldest hotel in the city, having been established in 1902 by English businesswoman Mayence Bent, when the city was a railway halt. It is named after Sir Henry Morton Stanley, a Welsh explorer who is best known for his explorations of central Africa and his successful search for missionary and explorer David Livingstone.
  Since the early 1900s, the Stanley Hotel has been known as the traditional meeting place for those going on safari in Kenya. It has played host to royalty, politicians, movie stars, and authors. It is still used for national business conferences and tourism concerns.
  The Sarova Stanley has a total of 217 rooms as of 2015. Several of the suites and other rooms are named for dignitaries and other notable persons who have stayed in the hotel such as The Windsor penthouse suite, named for Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor; The Karen Blixen suite, named for Karen Blixen, author of Out of Africa; The Hemingway conference suite, named for author Ernest Hemingway, and The Churchill Ballroom, named for Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
context_section_description: The hotel is known for having hosted conferences between world leaders, authors, and film actors, including Ernest Hemingway, Winston Churchill, Clark Gable, Ava Gardner, Grace Kelly, Gregory Peck, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, and Frank Sinatra. In 1952, the then Princess Elizabeth visited the hotel as part of a world tour, shortly before the death of her father, King George VI, and her subsequent succession as Queen of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth.
  
  The Stanley has influenced several authors. Ernest Hemingway stayed at the hotel on several occasions. In 1934, Hemingway stayed for several weeks while recovering from amoebic dysentery. During this time, he made notes for his novels The Green Hills of Africa and The Snows of Kilimanjaro. Hemingway mentions the Stanley in these works, and is also credited with introducing the word "safari" to the English language. Hemingway returned to the hotel in 1954.
   Colonel John Henry Patterson, who wrote the true story The Man-eaters of Tsavo that inspired the film The Ghost and the Darkness, also found his inspiration while staying at the Stanley.
  Elspeth Huxley, author of The Flame Trees of Thika, The Mottled Lizard, Red Strangers, and other books, frequented the Stanley Hotel and used it as a setting for several of her works.
caption: Ernest Hemingway on safari, 1934
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "EH 7018P  Ernest Hemingway on safari, Africa. January, 1934. Photograph in the Ernest Hemingway Photograph Collection, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2006:10:27 15:07:48", "Image ExifOffset": "350", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "544", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "8673", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "760", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "589", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "3bbc18828987b04e7c5069269c3fa1e1"}