The unforgettable experience

Don’t look anywhere else: this is a unique place in the world. First of all because of its architecture, which calls to mind the great mansions of the colonial era; and because it is the only place in the world where giraffes pass their heads in your room or in the dining room, looking for sweets. Twenty kilometres from Nairobi, the dream has been going on for 90 years, here is its story.

It all began in 1932 with a member of the Mackintosh family (famous for inventing the typical Mackintosh toffee and the Quality Street confectionery brand): Sir David Duncan. Driven by the British aristocracy’s infatuation with safaris at the time, he acquired a 140 acres estate about 20 kilometres from Nairobi, where an English colony lives, and had a manor house built there, characterised by its Scottish hunting lodge architecture. The location is breathtaking, with views of the Ngong Hills to the west and Kilimanjaro to the south. The property was sold in 1960 to a new owner who abandoned it in decay, and was acquired by its third owner in 1974. The third owner was Jock Leslie Melville, also a British aristocrat, married to an American environmentalist. The property is in poor condition and is now surrounded only by a small piece of fallow land on which three Rothschild giraffes (a variety living exclusively in Kenya, Sudan and Uganda) live. The couple immediately set about restoring the estate to its former size, and bought nearly 60 acres of the surrounding land, but they were especially enamoured of the three giraffes, to which they added the company of two babies, named Daisy and Marlon: history is on the way. In ten years, the Melvilles would turn the property into a sanctuary for these amazing ruminants, and when Jock died in 1984, and his wife returned to the United States, their son moved into the manor and transformed it into a small hotel with a charm inversely proportional to its size, since it only has six rooms: Giraffe Manor. The property is one of Nairobi’s most emblematic – and charming – landmarks, and it is another emotional story that leads another couple to buy it. Their names are Tanya and Mikey Carr-Hartley. The property is indeed well known to Tanya, who grew up in the neighbourhood and often rode around the estate on horseback. For her, Giraffe Manor has the taste of a Proust madeleine and when the property went on sale in 2009, she had no trouble convincing her husband to buy it to make it the flagship of their small hotel chain: The Safari Collection. It’s true that Mikey grew up on the Laipika Highlands (where Segera Retreat is built: see previous pages) where his family owns a ranch of over 100,000 hectares for four generations, and has a strong attachment to East Africa and local tribes and wildlife. Together these two lovers of Africa will continue – and develop – the work of Sir David and the Melvilles.

First of all, we are struck by the neoclassical architecture, typical of the 20s and 30s, and the facade of the main building, entirely hidden behind climbing plants. Inside, the immaculate raw walls and the oak beams and furniture add to the charm of the place. The hotel has only 6 rooms, so booking is highly recommended, especially as the location now enjoys a worldwide reputation. We would recommend the Karen Blixen suite, furnished with stuff from the author of “The African Farm” adapted for the cinema under the title “Out of Africa”. The hotel’s restaurant, which happens to be one of the best in Nairobi and attracts the most discerning clientele from all over the region to Giraffe Manor, will be unreservedly enjoyed. But beyond the exotic charm of the buildings, its rooms with the scent of yesterday bathed in a big band jazz played in mute, it is first and foremost to experience moments of incredible closeness with the giraffes that one stays here. Because every morning at 06:00, with a punctuality worthy of Swiss watchmakers, the ten or so giraffes of the estate approach the main building and stick their heads through the open windows of the rooms on the first floor, looking for the sweets that the hotel staff hand out to the guests. A unique experience like a giraffe’s head inviting itself into the intimacy of your room while you are barely awake! However, it is not necessary to get up at dawn, as the animals have got into the habit, once they have inspected the rooms upstairs, of walking around the building to the terrace overlooking the dining room, where breakfast is served until 10 o’clock, and here again to stick their heads out of the large windows (at the cost of a slight genuflection, which is amusing in itself) to taste the dishes served at the various tables. So breakfast is punctuated by the giraffe’s head banging – which head is not, as you can see when they come to eat out of your hands, very different from that of the horse. A similar ceremony takes place at dusk, when the dozen animals honour the hotel guests having a drink on the terrace with a vesperal visit before retiring for the night in the forest next to the hotel.

Is it worth mentioning that the memory of a stay at Giraffe Manor is absolutely unforgettable and well worth the diversion, and the 1000 euros it costs per night? A sum that is all the easier to pay when you know that it is entirely donated to the African Fund for Endangered Wildlife, which manages the establishment.