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There is a type of hotel we laud for its ability to put you in a different place, perhaps at a different time. Hotels that elevate you from the everyday and allow you try on a whole different life. Maybe you think we’re overstating what a hotel is capable of. Maybe you think it all sounds a little too much like some sort of theme park. Maybe you haven’t stayed at Emerson Spice<\/a> or Emerson on Hurumzi<\/a>, two very special hotels on the Tanzanian island of Zanzibar.<\/p>\n Still need convincing? Here’s a scene: It\u2019s the 1870s and you\u2019ve just arrived via boat to Zanzibar’s Stone Town. Amidst the swirling commotion of traders, you make your way towards a distinguished building, from which the richest man in East Africa now runs his business. As you cross the small plaza between this building and a mosque, you\u2019re stopped by local Swahili and Baluchi askaris<\/em>, imposing soldiers who eye you and wonder what business you have here. You peer past them and understand their presence. Behind them is a carpet of cash \u2014 wet rupees, laid out in the sun, cover the plaza ground like morning dew.<\/p>\n Stone Town is a port city and tourist town in the most ancient sense. For hundreds of years, traders from around the globe landed here \u2014 riddling the city with the type of architectural and cultural birthmarks that herald a long international history.<\/p>\n Drying the rupees was the legendary Tharia Topan\u2019s supposed solution to the hazards of seawater on paper money. The building where he operated is, today, Emerson Spice. The spaces at this hotel, and at sister property Emerson on Hurumzi, are so historic and yet still so urgently relevant that they manage to put all of Stone Town’s swirling and contradictory cultural influences into context \u2014 and all of their guests right into the mix.<\/p>\n At Emerson Spice, the older wing flaunts a Swahili Arab style, a reflection of its first owner \u2014 known as the last Swahili ruler of Zanzibar, whose son was coopted by the powerful Omani Sultanate. Its newer wing sports more Indian influence, to suit its later owner, a Hindu businessman and spice trader. That first owner was a man with lavish tastes. For silks, gems, and slaves. It\u2019s perhaps fitting, then, that the other Emerson in Zanzibar, Emerson on Hurumzi, was eventually used as a staging point for the liberation of the enslaved when abolition reached Zanzibar in 1883.<\/p>\n Maybe it\u2019s fitting too that, in a town so used to a swirl of visitors, some of the most distinguished Zanzibari buildings were brought to life in the modern era by an American. The late Emerson Skeens sounds like the perfect eccentric to bring a new purpose to what were decrepit, although historic, city buildings. The exteriors retain the influence of the original builders. The arches in the walls, the decorations and woodcarvings on the windows and the doors \u2014 all tell the story of this city\u2019s Swahili, Arab, and Indian influences, all restored by the traditional methods and guidelines required by the town\u2019s UNESCO protection. The interiors bring together interesting objects from the world over and antique furniture to capture the feeling of a town so influenced by passing merchants and lavish royals. But Skeens too left his unmistakably unconventional mark on the aesthetic.<\/p>\n This is a man who described his passion for design like this: \u201cSince childhood, often when I walk into a space for the first time, I\u2019m confronted with a narrative, a feeling, a history, some characters\u2026 There is a myth, an opera, a film or a play stretching out on stage before me.\u201d<\/p>\n Even better: \u201cthe romantic and erotic are always embedded in the space,\u201d he said. \u201cHow would I make love in that space and narrative?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEmerson Spice is the more \u2018feminine\u2019 of the two hotels,\u201d a manager at the Emerson Hotels Zanzibar explains to Tablet. The rooms center around an airy atrium, and the prevailing style within the historic setting can best be described as Art Nouveau mixed with traditional Zanzibari. But rooms here are whimsically if ornately themed, many dedicated to famous female muses. The Kate room is an ode to Katherine Hepburn. Aida, with high ceilings and epic columns, is dedicated to the eponymous opera. Camille, all French doors and gold satin, stands for the Greta Garbo film, \u201cLa Dame aux Camelias.\u201d<\/p>\n Emerson on Hurumzi<\/a>, not far from Emerson Spice<\/a>, is \u201ca fascinating labyrinth of small bridges, swings, private tea houses and large, spacious individually designed rooms.\u201d Here too each room has a theme, from the Keep Suite, reached by a castle-inspired series of bridges and stairs, to the Seyyed room, a reflection of the stately lifestyle of a sultan, with royal seal bedcovers and furniture draped in Omani red and gold.<\/p>\n But these hotels are anything but art pieces. Whether you\u2019re en route to a safari or to one of East Africa\u2019s most illustrious beaches, if you come to Stone Town, even if you’re not staying at one of the Emerson hotels, you\u2019ll likely find yourself within one \u2014 their celebrated restaurants grace every guide to this place. Here, local culture is hand-fed by servers in traditional kanzus and skullcaps, who share expert knowledge on tea production while balancing large brass platters in one hand and jugs of cleansing rosewater in the other.<\/p>\n At both Emersons, a rooftop Tea House serves drinks and dinner. One features a daily five-course seafood tasting menu. The other offers Swahili-style seating on thick Persian rugs, serving traditional fare alongside live music. At Emerson Spice, the Secret Garden restaurant is surrounded by stone walls and endless greenery.<\/p>\n Both hotels exist in the heart of Stone Town, \u201csurrounded by mosques and the regular daily rhythms of the call to prayer, local shops and stalls,\u201d as the manager explains. \u201cIn the midst of the life of the local community.\u201d<\/p>\n You might hear the sounds of the town through the breezy wooden panels of your room, but when it comes to immersion in the culture you\u2019ll have to do better than that. The hotels work with specific guides to bring you around the town and put the architectural landscape into context. They provide excursions to spice farms, or dhow<\/em> boat cruises along the ocean. They even have an in-house museum, the Princess Salme Museum at Emerson on Hurumzi, a perfect compliment to the local music at the Secret Garden of Emerson Spice every Friday.<\/p>\n \u201cIn short,\u201d the hotel tells Tablet, \u201cEmerson Zanzibar is a base from which Zanzibar can be explored in all its facets.\u201d In a place like this, that\u2019s no minor feat.<\/p>\n Book Emerson on Hurumzi<\/a> and Emerson Spice<\/a> on Tablet Hotels. How would you make love in this space? Emerson Skeens believed the answer to that question was central to the experience at his creations in Zanzibar \u2014 two hotels that have been turning up the heat on Tanzania\u2019s Spice Island.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":79888,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3643],"tags":[3073,3642,3709,3708],"thb-sponsors":[],"class_list":["post-79838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hotel-spotlight","tag-design","tag-hotel-spotlight","tag-tanzania","tag-zanzibar"],"acf":{"new_subtitle":"Emerson\u2019s Erotic Reflection of Zanzibar","property_id":[{"id":"9253"},{"id":"9252"}]},"yoast_head":"\n![\"Emerson](\"https:\/\/static.prod.r53.tablethotels.com\/media\/ecs\/global\/magazine\/story-images\/20211106\/SpiceVioletta-1.jpg\")
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