{"product_id":"mena-house-pyramids-hotel-cairo-1929-framed-print","title":"Mena House, Pyramids Hotel, Cairo - 1929 | Framed Print","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMena House Hotel | Framed Print\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003ePyramids Road, Cairo\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor more than a century, the most extraordinary address in Egypt sat half a mile from the Great Pyramid at Giza. In 1869, a Khedive built it for an Empress. By 1929, the world came to it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"eyebrow\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe story\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe lodge was built for a single occasion. The occasion lasted weeks. The lodge stayed.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Mena House began as a hunting lodge cut into the desert by the Khedive of Egypt in 1869 — built to receive Empress Eugenie of France for the opening of the Suez Canal, and positioned so that guests could open a window and see the Great Pyramid. Within two decades it had been transformed into an oriental palace: mashrabia windows, brass-embossed doors, blue tiles, mosaics of coloured marble and mother-of-pearl, a great dining hall modelled on a Cairo mosque.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBy the 1890s it had become the address of choice for everyone passing through Egypt with any claim to significance. Arthur Conan Doyle came for the winter season. King George V attended a banquet. Agatha Christie stayed while her husband excavated nearby — the hotel became a recurring presence in her Egyptian fiction, a place her characters passed through long after she left.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis letterhead is from 1929 — the height of that world, operating under The Egyptian Hotels Ltd., the most powerful hotel company in Egypt. What happened in its rooms and gardens in the decades that followed would be extraordinary. The letterhead doesn't tell that story. The audio does.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThis letterhead survived.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"eyebrow\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe art is not inspired by history. It is history.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEvery image in The Ephemera Collective began as a real artifact. This one was created by a master craftsman over 95 years ago, long before computers or any digital tools, at a time when the main instruments of design were a skilled hand, a steel plate, and time.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Mena House letterhead was the stationery of a hotel that understood its own mythology — designed to signal a place of consequence at the edge of the ancient world. The engraved vignettes, the layered typography, the ornate borders — drawn, cut, and pressed by artisans who spent their careers perfecting a craft that no longer exists at this scale. Pulled from the archive, not conjured from a prompt. What you're hanging on your wall is a primary document from a place that is still standing — but from a world that is entirely gone.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"eyebrow\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe story doesn't stop at the frame\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA companion postcard ships with every print. Scan the QR code and you'll hear the complete narrated story of the Mena House — the Khedive's lodge, the Empress, the world leaders, the writers, and the remarkable history that unfolded in the shadow of the same Pyramid that was there when it all began.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eResearched, written, and produced exclusively for this piece.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eNo subscriptions. No app. No extras to unlock. Everything included.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"eyebrow\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHow it feels\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is not only decoration. It's a conversation starter — the kind of \u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003ewall art that stops guests in their tracks and invites the question: \"What's the story behind this?\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAnd now you have the answer — researched, documented, and narrated in full. This is a boutique piece, only available from Chronicles \u0026amp; Color, made in limited runs, from a collection you won't find on a shelf at any big box store or scrolling through an online marketplace.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"eyebrow\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWho this is for\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCollectors drawn to colonial-era travel and the grand hotel tradition\u003c\/strong\u003e — the Mena House was the defining property of the Cairo season, and this letterhead places you inside it at its height.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReaders of Agatha Christie and Golden Age literary travel\u003c\/strong\u003e — Christie stayed here repeatedly. The hotel is woven into her Egyptian fiction and her personal history. This is the stationery of the place she returned to in her imagination.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAnyone fascinated by the ancient world and those who pursued it\u003c\/strong\u003e — archaeologists, explorers, Egyptologists, and the curious all came through these rooms. The Pyramids were the reason. The Mena House was where you stayed.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe kind of person who wants the full story behind the object\u003c\/strong\u003e — the founding, the famous guests, the wartime history, and the remarkable events that played out here across a century.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"eyebrow\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe details\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ctable style=\"font-size: 12px; width: 100%; border-collapse: collapse;\"\u003e\n\u003ctbody\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"font-size: 12px; padding: 6px 8px; border-bottom: 1px solid #e5e5e5; width: 44%; color: #555;\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFrame dimensions\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"font-size: 12px; padding: 6px 8px; border-bottom: 1px solid #e5e5e5;\"\u003e21¼\" W × 17¼\" H\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"font-size: 12px; padding: 6px 8px; border-bottom: 1px solid #e5e5e5; color: #555;\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eVisible print\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"font-size: 12px; padding: 6px 8px; border-bottom: 1px solid #e5e5e5;\"\u003e16\" W × 12\" H\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"font-size: 12px; padding: 6px 8px; border-bottom: 1px solid #e5e5e5; color: #555;\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFrame\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"font-size: 12px; padding: 6px 8px; border-bottom: 1px solid #e5e5e5;\"\u003ePremium box frame, black finish, Perspex glaze\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"font-size: 12px; padding: 6px 8px; border-bottom: 1px solid #e5e5e5; color: #555;\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMatting\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"font-size: 12px; padding: 6px 8px; border-bottom: 1px solid #e5e5e5;\"\u003eSnow white 2\" border mount\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"font-size: 12px; padding: 6px 8px; border-bottom: 1px solid #e5e5e5; color: #555;\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePaper\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"font-size: 12px; padding: 6px 8px; border-bottom: 1px solid #e5e5e5;\"\u003eEMA 200gsm archival quality\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"font-size: 12px; padding: 6px 8px; border-bottom: 1px solid #e5e5e5; color: #555;\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eIncludes\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"font-size: 12px; padding: 6px 8px; border-bottom: 1px solid #e5e5e5;\"\u003eCompanion postcard with QR access to full audio story\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"font-size: 12px; padding: 6px 8px; border-bottom: 1px solid #e5e5e5; color: #555;\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePackaging\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"font-size: 12px; padding: 6px 8px; border-bottom: 1px solid #e5e5e5;\"\u003ePremium archival presentation\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003c\/tbody\u003e\n\u003c\/table\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"close\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eOwn a piece of the story.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Chronicles \u0026 Color","offers":[{"title":"Black","offer_id":47741062316219,"sku":null,"price":179.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0680\/6487\/0587\/files\/MenaHouseHotelPyramids_1929_hero-1x1-B.jpg?v=1777533008","url":"https:\/\/chroniclesandcolor.com\/products\/mena-house-pyramids-hotel-cairo-1929-framed-print","provider":"Chronicles \u0026 Color","version":"1.0","type":"link"}