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Pachyderm party
KENT NEVER HAS TO ASK HIMSELF THOSE QUESTIONS. If he wasn’t so busy running A&K, he’d go on every Extreme Adventure. He’s booked on the polar bear expedition to Norway, but he really wants to find time for the audience with emperor penguins in Antarctica in November.
Where others need caffeine, Kent requires adrenaline. And he has a dizzying number of stories to prove it. Later in the afternoon, over lunch on the terrace at Laragai, he regales me with his tales. He tells of his flight in an English Electric Lightning fighter jet that whisked him to 65,000 feet, traveling at Mach 2.2. From the cockpit, he could see the curvature of the earth. “I felt like I was having a bad dream on safari, like I was in a sleeping bag and an elephant had sat on my chest,” he says. “I couldn’t talk or do anything.” He tells how, at age 16, having been kicked out of boarding school in Nairobi, he made a two-month, 5,000-mile motorbike trek from Kenya to Cape Town. En route, he even conned his way into strangers’ homes for a place to sleep.
The tales continue after the meal, as we climb into a Land Rover and head down a two-track, past elephant, giraffe, and kudu, to the Tassia Lodge, owned and operated by the local Masai. Tassia is one of the stops on the Extreme Adventure, and Kent wants me to see it.
As we beat through the bush, it occurs to me that all of the places we’re visiting take care of their staff and environment. Borana Ranch is a member of the Eco Tourism Society of Kenya. The Laragai House sends all profits back to conservation and community development. And no trees were felled to construct Tassia Lodge, which is built from low-impact materials and runs on solar power.
The Kenyan lodges reflect A&K’s broader conscience. In 1982, Kent, along with then-wife Jorie Butler (who remains A&K’s vice chairman), formed Friends of Conservation to preserve the ecology of Kenya’s Masai Mara National Reserve. Today, A&K makes a charitable donation for every booking anywhere in the world and furthers conservation through Global Foundation, which promotes the survival of sensitive ecosystems. Globally, A&K Philanthropy raises money for health, education, and the environment. When aid to Myanmar was blocked after Cyclone Nargis, A&K’s local team responded, delivering supplies and tractors to help farmers get their fields back into production.
“This isn’t a PR exercise. We’re using our brand expertise to raise and donate money and our logistical expertise to get the job done,” Kent says on our drive back to Laragai. “At the end of the day, money is no use. You have to deliver it to the people in real time.”
Kent hashes out logistics for the Kenya excursion
Back in the sitting room, as the heat of the day dissipates, Kent sips a glass of red wine. An employee of Laragai House enters to remind us that the generator will shut down at midnight and won’t start again until 6 a.m., the same time as our wake-up call to go riding polo ponies. Kent is excited at the prospect; he’s an old polo hand. He assembled polo teams that won the U.S. Gold Cup in 1978 and the U.S. Open in 1982. Those successes attracted the attention of Prince Charles, and Kent went on to captain the Windsor Park polo team, playing alongside His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales.
Now Kent confides that he hasn’t been on a horse since a polo accident in 1995 left him in a coma. After his five-month rehab, doctors warned him to never play again. “I cut polo out of my life like a drug,” he says. “I couldn’t even watch, as I knew I would take it up.”
I’m worried about the ride tomorrow, but Kent shows no trepidation. The next morning, as he straddles a stallion at the Dyer farm, in Borana, I hear him speaking to A&K guide Toby Fenwick-Wilson. “Wow. Wow!” he says, with the disbelief of a car-accident victim who realizes he can walk. “Toby, this is my first time up in some 13 years.”
“How does it feel?” Fenwick-Wilson asks.
“Funny.”
We ride along the plains until we spot giraffe. Thankfully, there are no mallets in sight to stir Kent’s fancy, and the pace remains a walk. When we return to the ranch, we sit down to eggs, sausage, and fresh fruit. Kent catches up with Rose and Tony Dyer, friends of many years.
After breakfast, we drive Kent to Lewa’s dirt airstrip, where a charter full of A&K execs meets him. They will head to Mombasa for a summit, where Kent will address the company’s local staff. He’s not thrilled about missing his first Wimbledon final in 22 years, but that’s the price of his dedication.
At the hangar, I bid Kent adieu, and his plane rumbles down the runway. Another day, another destination.
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