Downtown Cairo’s Windsor Hotel Is Finally Turning the Lights Back on
After a century of changing identities and six years behind closed doors, Windsor Hotel is preparing for its revival. We caught up with owner Wanil Doss to talk about it all.
For over a century, Windsor Hotel has been doing something increasingly rare in Downtown Cairo: reinventing itself, era after era, without losing its identity. Built in 1893 as part of the Khedieval baths, it became an annex to the original Shepheard’s Hotel, served as a British officers’ club, and, in 1961, was acquired by William and Mofida Doss, who would go on to make the Swiss-founded hotel a distinctly Egyptian family affair.
Over the decades, its rooms have discreetly hosted silver screen stars, its interiors have made cameos in films, and its original details, including the world’s oldest working Schindler elevator and an old telephone switchboard, have somehow survived fires, fads and the shifting fortunes of Downtown Cairo. But in 2019, the hotel faced the one thing its century-plus history nearly couldn’t withstand: excavation work beneath the building caused serious damage, forcing its doors shut.
Now, six years later, the Doss family has turned to Brassbell, the Egyptian hospitality company with a knack for turning storied spaces into stays, to take on Windsor’s revival. And, naturally, a historic coming together of Egyptians such as this necessitated an appropriately nostalgic celebration, gathering Windsor’s old guard and new custodians at Downtown Cairo’s Founders Spaces to trace the hotel’s history through archival photographs, a full family documentary and pieces of Windsor’s original furniture.
As the exclusive Media Partner for the evening, SceneTraveller caught up with Wanil Doss, one of Windsor’s owners, to talk about his family’s decades-long relationship with the hotel, the stories embedded in its walls and what it takes to bring a place with this much history back to life. And, because we weren’t about to let all that history stay on the page, we ended our conversation with Wanil at the SceneTraveller Time Machine: a photobooth where guests could step in, strike a pose and leave with a little piece of the present in print.
