For Men Who Have Everything

For the jaded, well-heeled tourist who has been everywhere, Kenya has something new in jungle sumptuousness. When his jet plane touches down in Nairobi, he is met by a brace of Rolls-Royces with zebra-skin upholstery. The cars whisk 125 miles north across Kikuyu country and draw up before the lush green lawns of the Mount Kenya Safari Club. Stretching away to either side are bamboo forests where roam the elephant and rhinoceros. Above towers snow-clad Mount Kenya, soaring 17,040 ft. into the equatorial sky. At sunset, guests are thrilled by the throb of tribal drums in the gloaming. (Since natives were lacking on the 95 acres of grounds in the "white" highlands of Kenya, the club owners imported a band of Wakamba drummers from 200 miles away, installed them in a specially-built, rent-free, mud-and-thatch village, and placed stern instructions on the village bulletin board that drums must be throbbed daily at sundown.)

Hedges of Spears. The 60-room clubhouse, formerly the British-owned Mawingo Hotel, overlooks a heated, kidney-shaped swimming pool and some of the most magnificent scenery in Africa. There are Turkish baths, massage parlors, hairdressing salons, and big freezing rooms in case anyone leaves the amenities long enough to shoot a buck or gazelle. Inside, the club is alive with jungle plants and palm trees; the entrance to the bars and wine vaults are framed by hedges of African spears. Each room has its own bath and fireplace. A special club airplane is provided for anyone in a hurry, and a stretch of the Kenya coast will be bought for big game fishing.

The owners of this lavish jungle hostelry are Hollywood Actor William Holden, Swiss Industrialist Carl Hirschmann and a jaunty U.S. oil millionaire and gambler named Ray Ryan. The three claim to have sunk a million dollars into improving the once staid Mawingo, which Ryan bought on a whim over a few drinks. As the

Mount Kenya Safari Club quietly opened last week, Ryan was insisting that each member could be completely certain that every other member was a "gentleman." Initiation fees are $500 for Americans (500 shillings for Britons because they are "poorer"), plus a yearly subscription of $60. Current membership includes Sir Winston Churchill, Prince Bernhard of The Netherlands, and the ninth Earl of Portsmouth; U.S. Congressional Leaders Lyndon Johnson, Everett M. Dirksen and John McCormack, and a clutch of film notables ranging from Clark Gable and John Wayne to Joan Crawford and Walt Disney. There are also a lot of nameless people with money who, as Gable put it, "are so far down the list they seem to have got in just to do the cleaning." Possibly Profitable. Gambler Ryan, who also owns the Salton Sea Yacht Club and the Bermuda Dunes Club in Palm Springs, says that Americans are tired of Miami Beach and will "go nuts" about the Africa he has discovered for them.

Admiring Kenyans say that Go-getter Ryan has stirred more publicity for East Africa in six months than the government has in 20 years. Asked if he expects to turn a profit on his investment, Entrepreneur Ryan turns magically into Philanthropist Ryan, insists that any profit will be used to inaugurate a program to preserve East Africa as the most important wild animal stronghold known to man, "or something like that."

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