Treetops Hotel

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Treetops Hotel

The Treetops Hotel is a hotel in Aberdare National Park in Kenya . It is located about 15 km northwest of Nyeri in the Aberdare Range , at an altitude of 1966 m within sight of Mount Kenya . The hotel was opened as a tree house in 1932 and offered guests the opportunity to observe wild animals in complete safety at a nearby watering hole. It gained international fame in 1952 when the British Princess Elisabeth succeeded the throne here as Queen Elisabeth II . Guerrillas destroyed the first hotel in 1954 during the Mau Mau War . It was then rebuilt in the immediate vicinity of the original location and subsequently developed into a popular travel destination for numerous wealthy and prominent tourists.

history

Major Eric Sherbrooke Walker, who owned land in the Aberdeen Range, had the idea to build a tree house for his wife Bettie . In 1932 a tree house with two rooms was built in a huge, 300 year old fig tree. This was a branch of the Outspan Hotel in Nyeri , which had also been built by the Walkers. The construction work was made more difficult by the presence of wild animals, as the tree house was purposely intended to be next to a wildlife path to a watering hole. Workers and overseers were often driven to flight, resulting in increased labor costs. Originally only used as an observation platform for guests on Wednesdays, demand rose rapidly, which is why the Walkers expanded the tree house to four rooms. One of them was intended for a resident hunter.

A frequent guest in the early years was Robert Baden-Powell , founder of the Boy Scout Movement , who spent his old age in Nyeri. In 1952, the British Princess Elisabeth and her husband Prince Philip accepted an invitation from the Walkers and stayed on the 5th and 6th. February one night at the Treetops Hotel. That night the British King George VI died. ; Elisabeth found out about this after leaving the hotel and arriving at Sagana Lodge in Kiganjo . She was the first British monarch since George I to be abroad at the time of his accession to the throne. Immediately after hearing about it, she returned to Britain . The famous hunter Jim Corbett , who lived in the Treetops Hotel, wrote the following lines in the guest book:

"For the first time in the history of the world, a young girl climbed into a tree one day a Princess and after having what she described as her most thrilling experience she climbed down from the tree next day a Queen - God bless her."

"For the first time in world history a young girl climbed a tree one day as a princess and after, according to her words, she had an absolutely exciting experience, the next day she descended as queen - God bless her."

The Mau Mau War began in 1951/52 as a protest against British domination and discrimination in the homeland of the Kikuyu and developed into an armed conflict. The British suppressed the uprising in 1953/54 and hundreds of Mau Mau rebels hid in the Aberdare Range, led by Dedan Kimathi . In June 1953, the entire region was declared a restricted area for Africans and a shooting order was issued. During "Operation Blitz" at the end of 1953, 125 rebels died. In January 1954 "Operation Hammer" of the King's African Rifles followed , which hardly met any insurgents, as most of them had already left the area. As a protest against the order to shoot and the repeated military operations, the rebels burned the Treetops Hotel, which the King's African Rifles used as an observation post, on May 27, 1954. This incident happened when the British were beginning to break the last resistance.

In 1957 the Treetops Hotel was rebuilt on a nearby chestnut tree at the same waterhole. Due to the media attention that the hotel had gained since Queen Elizabeth's visit, it attracted numerous well-known personalities who wanted to watch the natural spectacle and be comfortable at the same time. They included Charlie Chaplin , Joan Crawford, and Lord Mountbatten . For a number of years the motto was “no see, no pay”: guests were allowed to stay overnight for free if no wild animals could be seen during their stay. The Treetops Hotel and Outspan Hotel in Nyeri have been owned by Aberdare Safari Hotels since 1978 . Due to the success of the Treetops was in Shimba Hills National Reserve another Baumhaushotel opened the Shimba .

hotel

The hotel now has 36 rooms (including three suites) on four floors, with the structure being additionally supported by stilts. Visitors can observe the wildlife from their rooms, balconies or from the roof terrace, and there are two shelters on the floor. During the day, elephants , buffalo , waterbuck and warthogs can be observed, and rhinos , lions and leopards at night . The guests usually stay one to two days; They check in at the Outspan Hotel in Nyeri and are taken here by bus. Tours in other parts of the national park are also offered.

literature

  • RJ Prickett: Treetops: Story of a World Famous Hotel . David & Charles, Newton Abbot 1988, ISBN 0-7153-9020-1 .
  • Eric Sherbrooke Walker: Treetops Hotel . Robert Hale Publishing, London 1962.

Web links

Commons : Treetops Hotel  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Treetops Hotel: Not a Bit Posh But It Attracts a Posh Clientele. The New York Times , September 15, 1968, accessed September 13, 2013 .
  2. ↑ a b The Man from Treetops. Andrew Lownie Literary Agency, accessed September 13, 2013 .
  3. ↑ Entry in the guest book of the Treetops Hotel
  4. ↑ Treetop Hotel Burned by Mau Mau. The New York Times , May 28, 1954, accessed September 15, 2013 .
  5. ^ GK Sharma: Tales from the top of a tree. The Sunday Tribune, May 26, 2002, accessed September 15, 2013 .

Coordinates: 0 ° 21 ′ 35 ″  S , 36 ° 54 ′ 1 ″  E