Équipements

A la fin des années 1980, un psychiatre Américain (Dr Emerson) découvre Zanzibar, forcément très délabré et décide de redonner vie à ces bâtiments pour en faire un hôtel et un lieu de rencontres et d’art.

Cet ensemble nous est parvenu grâce aux amis d’Emerson, qui après sa mort (en 2014) ont continué à entretenir sa mémoire, son projet et son hôtel.

L’hôtel en plus de sa fonction hôtelière abrite :

Un espace d’exposition gérée par l’Emerson’s fundation (où sont exposées des artistes ou des expositions sur des thèmes liés à la ville ou l’île de Zanzibar)

Un petit musée : Princess Salme’s museum

Un atelier de création de mode (Farouk’s shop)

Emerson On Hurumzi

Cet hôtel doit rester comme Emerson l’avait imaginé au départ : un lieu d’hébergement unique pour offrir la meilleure découverte de la ville et de l’île, un lieu de rencontres et un espace de culture.

Emerson Dewey Skeens first came to Zanzibar in the late 1980s at a time when there was no tourist infrastructure on the island and only the occasional and intrepid backpacker attempted to visit it. A passionate traveler, one of the benefits of his career as an educational therapist working with troubled adolescents in New York was that it left him the freedom to travel for several months at a time. He would choose a place that appealed to him—Venice, Rome, Sevilla, Istanbul, among others and spend several months there studying the art, architecture and culture.

His first trips to Zanzibar were brief, mere footnotes to his ongoing travels in Africa. But increasingly intrigued by the island’s physical beauty and architecture, its music, complex culture, multi-layered history and the charm of its people, he soon decided Zanzibar merited a longer visit.

In 1989, he returned for a planned four month stay, a sojourn that has lasted 25 years. “The whole city was falling into ruins,” he recalls. “Sitting on that rooftop, the buildings seemed to call out to me that evening. It was then I knew I had to stay … and he did!