Emerson on Hurumzi

Emerson on Hurumzi occupies four linked 1860s buildings at 236 Hurumzi Street, deep in the UNESCO listed maze of Stone Town and a short walk from Forodhani Gardens, the Old Fort, the House of Wonders and the Sultan's Palace. The American traveller Emerson Dewey Skeens found the houses in ruins in the late 1980s and spent the rest of his life restoring them; since his death in 2014 the hotel has been kept going by his friends and the Emerson Foundation. The result is an unusually atmospheric place to stay: carved Zanzibari doors, stained glass, painted ceilings, Persian rugs, antique furniture and daybeds heaped with cushions, arranged around interior courtyards and stairwells rather than corridors. Twenty three rooms are each decorated differently, all with en suite bathrooms and most with a private terrace or a window seat over the rooftops. The building's first owner insisted on having the highest roof in Stone Town, and that terrace is now the Tea House restaurant, a 36 seat rooftop where dinner is a set Swahili menu with Omani and Persian influences, usually accompanied by a live Taarab band, and where the view takes in the minarets, the cathedral towers, the Hindu temple spire and the Indian Ocean at sunset. Downstairs the hotel also holds an exhibition space run by the Emerson Foundation, the Princess Salme Museum and a fashion workshop, plus a spa in an interior courtyard with a plunge pool, a hammam and massage rooms. Guided city walks, spice farm tours, sandbank trips and dhow sunset cruises are arranged from reception.