Distinguished Visitors

As the country's first luxury hotel, Sarova Stanley has played host to royal safaris and a long line of living legends. These include such famous names as the writer Ernest Hemingway. It was in a Stanley hotel bedroom during 1933/34, recuperating from amoebic dysentery and prolapse suffered on a hunting trip below Kilimanjaro, that he thought up themes and wrote some of his most famous short stories and books, several of which mention Sarova Stanley.

These books, which were to make him a household name across the world, included The Green Hills of Africa (l935); The Snows of Kilimanjaro (l936); The Happy Ending, retitled The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber. The Stanley has also been, at various times, the base for classic Hollywood film idols such as Stewart Granger, Clark Gable, Ava Gardner, Grace Kelly, and Gregory Peck.

In recent times the hotel has hosted modern stars like Isabella Rossellini (Blue Velvet, Wild at heart), Michael Caine (The Quiet American, Batman Begins), Sidney Poitier (Cry The Beloved Country, To Sir with Love), Barbra Streisand (The Rose, Ruthless People) and James Bond himself, the ageless Sean Connery. Not to mention notable entertainers like Old Blue Eyes, Frank Sinatra, who at the time was married to Ava Gardner.

Other notable guests and visitors in recent times include the maverick entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson, Kenyan President, His Excellency Mwai Kibaki, ragamuffin Grammy award winning musician Shaggy, Queen Nnaabagereka Sylvia Nagginda of the kingdom of Buganda, Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Professor Wangari Mathaai, Dr. Kenneth Kaunda, founding president of Zambia and WANGO Peace award recipient, best selling author and motivational speaker Steven Covey, and Shyam Benegal, the famous Indian film director.