The Art of Hospitality

In Nairobi, and around the world, hotels introduce their guests to the creativity that surrounds them—and reveal canvases visitors may not otherwise see.

by Jennifer Flowers

BARELY 4 8 HOURS after landing in Nairobi, I’m on a leafy terrace with a multinational crowd of Ghanaian businessmen,European architects,and Kenyan artists—some just home from the Venice Biennale, others on their way to Frieze Miami. The setting is electrified with chatter, and I’m deep in conversation with painter Shabu Mwangi. His exhibition—hosted by GravitArt, an online gallery that creates pop-up shows throughout the city—is the reason we’ve gathered at this private residence in the buzzy Westlands neighborhood.

I’m here not because I’m part of the jet-setting art-world elite but because of Hemingways Eden, a boutique hotel opened in 2021 by Anna Trzebinski. (She originally built it with her late husband, Tonio, as their family home in 1992.) I chose the Eden because of its promise to go beyond merely providing a nice place to sleep. Trzebinski is on a mission to connect visitors and locals to Nairobi’s creative scene through on-site hotel events and customized art immersion experiences. And she’s the right person to do it. Born in Germany and raised in Kenya, she’s a fashion designer whose connections run deep in the creative community. Rather than hire professional guides, she recruits friends who have made careers in the arts to lead the way to gallery openings, screenings, concerts, and more. Though the hotel was recently brought into the Kenyabased Hemingways Collection, Trzebinski’s influence remains.

The hotel itself is a showcase of creativity. The four-acre, treeshaded grounds retain their private estate feel. Its nine rooms— many with canopy beds hand carved by artisans based on Kenya’s Lamu Island—are spread out over a main house and a studio annex. Artifacts from Kenya’s Samburu and Maasai cultures, along with items from Trzebinski’s sizable personal collection of contemporary paintings and sculptures by African artists, prepare my eye for the art I’m encountering in Nairobi.

“Africa is on fi e in every discipline as far as art is concerned, and Nairobi is a vibrant hub of this,” Trzebinski says.

The energy and excitement surrounding contemporary art is exactly what the hotel’s private art experiences can offer travelers. My visit to GravitArt is part of a gallery crawl I’m on with Peter Achayo, an art aficionado, researcher, blogger, and walking encyclopedia of African artists. He’s introducing me to people and scenes I wouldn’t have been able to find on my own.

At the GravitArt show, I talk to Mwangi while I gaze at Supreme Cages, his oil painting on a nearby wall. It depicts a skeletal white figure, head down and hands folded, with an oppressive, heavy, red line hovering overhead. Mwangi has just returned from the well-regarded Documenta exhibition in Germany. He tells me the piece is his response to the media’s misguided impression that his work is only about the harsh realities of life in Mukuru, one of Nairobi’s largest slums, where he was raised and where he works with a youth-oriented art collective, Wajukuu Art Project.

“When you come from a place like Mukuru, sometimes people [assume] that you can’t think globally,” he says. “That’s something I push back on. In my work, I’m not just talking about Mukuru. I’m talking about global issues and how they have an impact on us all.”

At the next gallery, Kuona Artists Collective, a band is playing on a stage under the stars. Achayo introduces me to the young artist Ndunde Bulimo, who immediately hugs me. Minutes later, she’s guiding me into one of the venue’s shipping containers that double as showrooms, explaining the meaning behind her bright-hued woodblock prints. They depict men and women in headdresses and hats—a series about the personal motivations behind hair coverings. I zero in on a print of a woman in a cerulean headdress, who throws an intense stare at the viewer. Soon after, I leave the gallery a new patron of Nairobi art, the tubedup print in hand, excited to be part of the conversation and grateful to Hemingways Eden for bringing me into it.

Contact the hotel for information about guided art experiences. hemingways-collection.com/eden

More Hotels Where Guests Experience Great

Art

HE Dublin

Rome

This elegant 98-room hotel from the Dorchester Collection is housed in an 1889 apartment building, and the lobby, with its cozy nooks and honor bar, retains a residential feel. In 2022, the hotel launched “Caravaggio—Rebel and Rome,” a private tour with an art historian who leads guests on a twohour experience of the city through the lens of the baroque-era artist’s paintings and his short but colorful life. dorchester collection.com

In four restored Georgian townhouses, the Merrion displays one of Ireland’s largest private art collections, on par with the National Gallery down the street. Browse a catalog in each of the 142 rooms and suites or take a self-guided audio tour to see paintings by Jack Yeats (poet W.B. Yeats’s brother), William Scott, Louis le Brocquy, and others. Every two years, the Merrion Plinth Award displays a contemporary artist’s work alongside the more historic paintings. An afternoon tea features desserts inspired by the collection. merrionhotel.com

S L Missouri

Paris

At Philippe Starck–designed Le Royal Monceau, resident art concierge Julie Eugène leads complimentary tours of the 152-room hotel’s permanent and rotating exhibits. Works range from Salvador Dalí paintings to photographs by contemporary French artist Arlette Kotchounian (pieces are in the sprawling Gallery Suites too). Eugène can also arrange studio visits, private dinners at galleries, after-hours tours of the Louvre or the Picasso Museum, and art workshops for children.

leroyalmonceau .com/en

The U.S.-based hotel group 21c debuts its 10th hotel this summer, part of a citywide ff ort to revitalize downtown St. Louis through the arts. Located in a former YMCA building, the hotel dedicates more than 14,000 square feet to museum exhibition space that’s open to the public, featuring a rotating collection of works by acclaimed artists and permanent pieces from local talent. Look for public events and site-specific installations too, including a 20,000-pound orb filled with water by Turkish American conceptual artist Serkan Özkaya. 21cmuseumhotels .com/stlouis/

Cape Town

Set on a cliff overlooking the ocean, Ellerman House has 13 individually designed rooms. It doubles as an art gallery, thanks to owner Paul Harris’s collection of South African art from the 19th century to the present day, including pieces by the late social realist painters George Pemba and Gerard Sekoto. The hotel’s art guide Talita Swarts arranges private textile, painting, and printing workshops with contemporary artists, such as Kimathi Mafafo, who incorporates embroidery into her paintings. ellerman.co.za

HE Massachusetts

Housed in the former Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, the Langham emerged from a renovation in 2022 with a collection of 290 works—many from the Copley Society of Art, the country’s oldest artist-focused nonprofit. Pieces by colonial-era portraitist John Singleton Copley and contemporary painter Mary Hughes complement the bank’s original murals of Abraham Lincoln and Alexander Hamilton by N.C. Wyeth. Scan a QR code for a selfguided tour with video interviews of contemporary artists. langhamhotels .com/boston

Bahamas

On the sandy white shores of Cable Beach in Nassau, the 226-room Rosewood offers seclusion and ocean views, plus artwork by the likes of Damien Hirst and more than 100 pieces by John Cox, a prominent Bahamian mixedmedia artist. Cox (pictured at left) is also the executive director of arts and culture at the Current, a creative center at the resort complex that organizes art exhibitions, lectures, and workshops. Guests can also snorkel through a coral reef sculpture garden made by local artists. rosewoodhotels .com/baha-mar