In 1928, a couple of English settlers - Mr Sherbrooke Walker and his wife Bettie - started the Treetops. They began opening a small four-bedroom hotel in Nyeri calling it Outspan and shortly afterwards they began to build the Treetops as the result of Bettie’s memories: the tree house built in the garden by her brothers. It overlooked a large waterhole where, day and night, the animals emerged from the bush to drink.