Cottar’s 1920s Camp sells a specific fantasy. Mahogany bars, oil portraits, and waiters carrying gin and tonic on silver trays across a lawn in the Maasai Mara. That aesthetic is not accidental. It recreates the look of an early 20th century hunting safari, the exact era when colonial hunters and settlers reshaped land use across Kenya. A camp built on that imagery cannot avoid the history behind it. Its own owner says so openly. Touring Insights looks at what that colonial reckoning actually involves, and what it changes for the person booking a stay.
This is not a takedown or an endorsement. It is a look at a real tension. A business trades on colonial nostalgia while trying to build a different land and labor model underneath it.
Why Cottar’s 1920s Camp Looks the Way It Does
The camp sits inside Olderkesi Conservancy, in the far southeast corner of the greater Maasai Mara ecosystem, right against the Tanzania border. Its style deliberately echoes the 1920s. Canvas wall tents, four-poster beds, ornate writing desks, and a recently renovated mess tent lined with crystal whisky tumblers and vintage mirrors. Guests dress for dinner at a long mahogany table, an experience built to feel like stepping into a 100-year-old photograph.
That photograph includes a hard truth. Early East African hunting safaris of the 1900s to 1930s ran on land taken from Maasai and other communities under colonial administration. The hunting economy of that era treated wildlife, and often local labor, as resources for European and American clients. Cottar’s built its name inside that era. Its current branding still borrows the look, right down to the camp’s name.
The Family Behind a Century of Change
Charles Cottar, an American hunter, arrived in Kenya in 1919. He built a reputation for surviving repeated leopard attacks while guiding big-game hunts. His son later opened a lodge and was killed by a rhino during a hunt, a detail the family still tells guests as part of camp history. Calvin Cottar, Charles’s great-grandson, took over decades later. He moved the business from hunting to photographic safaris, trading rifles for cameras as Kenya’s 1977 hunting ban took hold.
Calvin Cottar has spoken publicly about the discomfort in his own branding. He has acknowledged that urban Kenyans are often strongly opposed to anything that looks colonial. White Africans in particular need to change how they operate, he has said. Even so, he has kept the 1920s aesthetic, arguing that Kenya’s bigger unresolved problem is land ownership, not decor.
What the Colonial Aesthetic Actually Costs and Buys
Keeping the vintage look is a business decision as much as a historical one. It sets Cottar’s apart in a crowded luxury Mara market. The style draws film stars, heads of state, and long-time East Africa regulars who want the old-safari feel without an actual hunting rifle in hand. That demand funds a payroll built entirely of Kenyan staff, with Maasai guides leading most game drives and walks.
The tension is real. That same imagery can read as a celebration of the period that dispossessed the people now working there. Cottar’s answer has been to change what sits underneath the aesthetic, not the aesthetic itself: land tenure, staffing, and revenue sharing. Whether that answer satisfies a given guest is a personal call. No brand statement settles it for you.
The Land Model That Sets Olderkesi Apart
This is where Cottar’s departs furthest from the colonial pattern it visually recalls. Calvin Cottar says he personally owns very little land today, having given most of it away. He argues for conservancy leases over land ownership near parks. Olderkesi Conservancy runs on that logic. It covers roughly 7,600 acres, about 31 km2, of Maasai-owned land in the southeastern Mara. Two bodies manage it jointly: the Cottar’s Wildlife Conservancy Trust and the Olderkesi Wildlife Community Trust. That structure routes lease payments to the Maasai landowners who hold title to the ground the camp sits on.
This setup is close to the opposite of the early 1900s model, where colonial administrators granted land to European settlers with no lease and no local ownership at all. Guides at Cottar’s are Maasai, and some now own working land of their own. Camp activities include medicinal-herb walks and pangolin and vulture conservation work, run with the local trust rather than for it.
Cottar’s 1920s Camp: The Facts
| Detail | Figure |
|---|---|
| Family in Kenya since | 1919 (Charles Cottar) |
| Current owner/operator | Calvin Cottar, great-grandson of founder |
| Shift from hunting to photographic safaris | 1970s, following Kenya’s 1977 hunting ban |
| Location | Olderkesi Conservancy, southeast Maasai Mara, on the Tanzania border |
| Olderkesi Conservancy size (reported) | approx. 7,600 acres (about 31 km2) |
| Conservancy management | Cottar’s Wildlife Conservancy Trust and Olderkesi Wildlife Community Trust |
| Tents at camp | typically 9-10 |
| Road transfer from Nairobi | approx. 6 hours, road conditions permitting |
| Access by air | via Cottar’s own airstrip or nearby Keekorok airstrip |
| Recommended minimum child age | 8 years and above (camp guidance) |
| Peak-season booking lead time | 9-12 months ahead for July-October |
How Cottar’s Compares to Other Heritage and Community Camps
Cottar’s is not the only Mara-area camp wrestling with what its land model and branding say about history. A few named comparisons make the differences concrete.
| Camp | Founded / era referenced | Land model | Aesthetic |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cottar’s 1920s Camp | 1919, 1920s hunting-safari era | Conservancy lease to Maasai trust (Olderkesi) | Deliberately colonial-era, vintage decor |
| Angama Mara | 2015, no colonial-era branding | Private land on the Oloololo Escarpment | Contemporary design, no period styling |
| Governors’ Camp | 1972, post-independence era | Reserve-based, no ownership claim over land | Classic tented camp, minimal colonial imagery |
| Porini Mara Camp (Ol Kinyei Conservancy) | 2000s, community conservancy model | Conservancy lease to Maasai landowners | Simple tented camp, no period theme |
The pattern is not that older equals worse or newer equals better. Camps built after independence, or built around conservancy leases, rarely lean into colonial-era styling the way Cottar’s does. They have no century-old brand story attached to defend.
What This Means for You as a Guest
A stay at Cottar’s puts you inside a period aesthetic. Underneath it runs a modern, Maasai-partnered land and staffing structure. If the visual language of a 1920s hunting camp sits uneasily with you, that reaction is reasonable, and shared by many Kenyans, including some Cottar’s has quoted on the subject. Booking means supporting a specific model: high lease payments to a Maasai trust, an all-Kenyan team, and conservation work tied directly to the conservancy, wrapped in a look the family has chosen not to change.
Ask your guide or camp host directly about the Olderkesi Wildlife Community Trust and how lease income reaches Maasai families. Most Cottar’s guides can walk you through the arrangement in detail, since it is central to how the camp explains its own history to guests.
Explorer Notes
Guides at Cottar’s tend to bring up the family history unprompted, including Charles Cottar’s leopard encounters and his son’s death by rhino. It is part of how the camp frames its own century. Ask about the shift from hunting to photography and most guides can explain the 1977 hunting ban in detail, often better than written camp materials do. Pangolin and vulture monitoring work through the local trust is genuinely hands-on if you ask to join a walk, not a staged photo stop. Dinner dress-up is optional at most tables now, despite the mahogany-table setting, so skip packing formalwear you do not already own. A few guides are Maasai landowners in their own right within the conservancy. Asking about their family’s land arrangement usually gets a franker answer than the same question put to camp management.
FAQ
Is Cottar’s 1920s Camp actually connected to colonial history? Yes. The camp’s aesthetic recreates the style of 1900s-1930s hunting safaris, and the Cottar family has operated in Kenya since 1919, spanning the colonial period into today’s photographic-safari model.
Does Cottar’s own the land it operates on? No. The camp sits inside Olderkesi Conservancy, roughly 7,600 acres of Maasai-owned land. It is leased through the Cottar’s Wildlife Conservancy Trust and the Olderkesi Wildlife Community Trust, not land the family holds outright.
Why does the camp keep a colonial-era look if the owner is uncomfortable with it? Calvin Cottar has said the aesthetic funds a business model built around Maasai land leases and an all-Kenyan staff. He sees Kenya’s land ownership questions as the larger issue to address, not the camp’s decor.
Are the guides and staff at Cottar’s local Kenyans? Yes. The team is entirely Kenyan, with Maasai guides leading most game drives, walks, and conservation activities. Some guides now own working land within the conservancy.
How do I get to Cottar’s 1920s Camp? Expect roughly a 6-hour road transfer from Nairobi, or a flight to Cottar’s own airstrip or the nearby Keekorok airstrip. Camps typically book out 9 to 12 months ahead for the July-October peak season.
Booking a stay with this history in view is a legitimate way to travel, not a reason to avoid the Mara altogether. For a Kenya itinerary that pairs a camp like this with clearer context on community-land conservancies, visit our Tour Packages page or ask a partner operator to build Olderkesi into your Mara route.
