Ernest Hemingways, for lack of anything else, drank a gin and tonic in the late afternoon, after returning from hunting near Lake Magadi, the future U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt instead camped there after returning from Mount Kenya, his favorite destination.
The historic Fairmont Norfolk Hotel in Nairobi closed its doors yesterday after one hundred and sixteen years, twice as long as Kenya, due to the economic crisis caused by the virus.
Dismissing all employees and paying off creditors, the historic hotel, which has an offshoot in Maasai Mara with the lodge of the same name, said that it is not expected to reopen soon.
It is one of the first and certainly the most excellent cases of closure of a prestigious tourist hospitality and business men's lodge in the capital.
Norfolk was opened by British settlers five years after Nairobi's expansion with the construction of the railway linking it with Mombasa in 1904.
For years it was a landmark for businessmen, adventurers and personalities arriving in Nairobi. Winston Churchill appreciated its cuisine, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had a suite always available, while members of the royal family at the time of Queen Victoria loved its garden.
More recently, the crew of the film "My Africa" camped there for months in 1982, with Maryl Streep befriending many staff members who affectionately called her "Karen". Norfolk was also an important thinker's refuge for Koffi Annan, then President of the UN, who was called to resolve the dispute between Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga that had brought Kenya to the brink of civil war in early 2008. To mention other illustrious guests, Mick Jagger and Madonna for music, Angelina Jolie and Denzel Washington for cinema, Niki Lauda for sport.
Norfolk was also the scene of the first major terrorist attack in Kenya on New Year's Day 1980. A bomb dropped by pro-Palestinian Arab bombers partially destroyed the hotel but, above all, killed 20 clients and staff members.
The owner at the time was an important Jewish businessman who was said to have logistically supported the Israeli secret services in an operation at the Entebbe airport in Uganda against forces linked to the PLO.
After two years, the hotel was sold to the Fairmont chain and rebuilt in style.
The writer stayed in that little paradise of relaxation on the outskirts of Nairobi in 1992, enjoying a hot bath with salts in an ancient bathtub where they had probably laid their graces noblewomen and femme fatale of a magic and evocative Africa, but also wild and dangerous.
Those who had been there before told me that it was nothing compared to the atmosphere of the sixties and seventies, but under the acacias, in the pergola, on the breakfast veranda and even under the duvets of the beds wider than long, that atmosphere was still alive.
Let's hope that Norfolk will soon shine again and that other mythical dwellings of those who landed in Nairobi will not have to follow its painful example.