He was host to Princess Elizabeth and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, during their February 1952 visit to Kenya. The couple had accepted an invitation to spend a night at Treetops, and arrived there on the afternoon of 5 February 1952. During the night, unknowingly, the Princess succeeded to the British throne. Her father, King George VI, died at Sandringham in England in the early hours of 6 February, and the Princess received the news later that day, after leaving Treetops, at the Sagana Lodge.