Funday Times

A series by Gaveshaka in association with Studio Times
The intriguing story of a seaside hotel
In the picture is a rather unusual view taken from the air, of a hotel by the seaside. It is situated just outside Colombo going down south. You guessed it right – it’s the Mount Lavinia Hotel. It’s yet another of Sri Lanka’s leading hotels with an old world charm.

Mount Lavinia is known as ‘Galkissa’ in Sinhala. One explanation is that it has been derived from ‘Gal Vissa’ – twenty boulders. Another is that it meant ‘the rock of the key’ because of its strategic or key position. The rock has been marked by the Portuguese who came to Sri Lanka in 1505 A.D, on their maps and called it the ‘Marro’ and the ‘Hill of Mapane’.

The hill on which the hotel is situated was known in the olden days as ‘Lihiniya Kanda’ – the rock of sea gulls. It was obviously because of these birds hovering round, the place being so close to the sea. The Dutch, who came here after the Portuguese had called it the ‘Pregnant Wench’ when they kept an eye out for this rock as a landmark of the coast.

Mount Lavinia came into prominence during the time of the British Governor, Sir Thomas Maitland (1805-1811), the second governor after Frederick North (1798-1805), who selected the spot for “a small but comfortable house” away from Colombo Fort, where the Governor’s residence was. Charmed by the location of the rock, the only elevated land on the western shore overlooking the bay, he built the house “laid out in mahogany and calamander wood with white columns, polished wooden floors, intricately-carved wood ceilings and wide windows open to the ocean breezes.”

Hailing from a Scottish noble family, Lieutenant-General Maitland was the second son of the Earl of Lauderdale. He was 46 years of age when he arrived, still a bachelor. He has been described as “a great human force controlled by a will of iron”. He was a professional soldier, Member of Parliament and Privy Councillor and a member of the Board of Control of the East India Company which administered the British possessions in the East.

Legend has it that Sir Thomas fell in love with a pretty dancer, Lovinia Aponsuwa, a girl of mixed Portuguese and Sinhala blood. The Portuguese soldiers had been intermarrying freely and the children born from such marriages were known as ‘mestizos’ which meant children of mixed marriages. They were discriminated on account of their birth and breeding and also because of the colour of their skin which was fairer than the skin of the locals. They were considered lower in status and were treated as low caste people.

They were poor and shunned by the richer classes and the so called superior castes. Providing entertainment was one of the vocations they chose. It was one of these girls in a family living near the rock who was fancied by the Governor. It is said that for seven years Lovina went to see the Governor through a tunnel, which had its beginning in a well-opening in her garden and ended in the wine cellar of the Governor’s house.

After Sir Thomas left at the end of his term of office in 1811, the succeeding governors were not keen on using the residence which came to be known as ‘Lavinia House’ and the whole area was later identified as ‘Mount Lavinia’.

The Governor’s mansion became a holiday home for foreign visitors, wartime hospital and eventually as one of Sri Lanka’s first and finest hotels. The origin of the building is thus nearly two hundred years old and the hotel with 275 rooms – all with a sea view, is a popular one with hosts of foreign tourists, enjoying the location by the sea. “One of the world’s best gathering places” is how the international news magazine described the Mount Lavinia Hotel in November 2000.

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