THE STORY OF A GEORGETOWN HOUSE
Woodbine House, now home to Cara Lodge, was built in the 1840s. Unlike many of Georgetown’s stately buildings, Woodbine began life as two separate dwellings. The main house at the front was occupied by the Meservey family, while a second building stood behind it.
During the latter part of the nineteenth century, Woodbine became the home of George Anderson Forshaw, one of the most prominent citizens of colonial Georgetown. Forshaw was a solicitor, businessman and influential member of the Town Council who served several terms as Mayor of Georgetown, including 1879–1880, 1882–1883 and 1886–1887.
The Forshaw family's association with Woodbine can now be traced to at least 1875, when Forshaw's son, George Whitfield Forshaw, was recorded as having been born at “Woodbine Cottage.”
It was under George Anderson Forshaw that the two original buildings were joined and Woodbine House began to take the form that survives today.
Forshaw commissioned elaborate cast-iron beams and brackets from Liverpool, England, elements of which remain a striking feature of what is now the Ballet Room. The decorative ironwork became an important architectural motif throughout the house, complementing its railings and gates.
The great drawing room was embellished with ornate architectural details and would, many decades later, become the celebrated Ballet Room of the Taitt era. The room's remarkable wooden doors, traditionally said to have been hand-painted in India and specially shipped to British Guiana, remain among the house's most distinctive features.
Forshaw's importance extended well beyond Woodbine House. He played a significant role in the development of Georgetown, including the acquisition of land associated with the creation of Queenstown, where Forshaw Street bears his name. He was also instrumental in securing the site on which Georgetown's magnificent City Hall was built.
A patron of the arts as well as a lawyer and politician, Forshaw supported Egbert Martin, known as “Leo,” one of British Guiana's earliest important poets.
George Anderson Forshaw died in Marylebone, London, on 28 August 1889. Woodbine House therefore stands as one of the surviving physical reminders of a man who played a notable part in the civic, cultural and architectural development of nineteenth-century Georgetown.
More than three decades after Forshaw's death, Woodbine House was the setting for one of the most colourful episodes in its long history. In 1923, HRH Edward, Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VIII, visited British Guiana. Georgetown society had been preparing for the royal visit for months. Elaborate plans were made for receptions and dances at which the colony's leading families hoped to be presented to the future king. At a dance at Woodbine House, however, tradition records that the Prince's attention fell not on one of the carefully presented daughters of the plantation elite, but on a young Guyanese woman, Phyllis Woolford. The Prince reportedly opened the dancing with her. The story became part of Georgetown folklore. Miss Woolford never married and, according to local tradition, was thereafter affectionately known as “The Duchess.”
Edward would, thirteen years later, become King Edward VIII. His reign lasted less than a year before he abdicated the British throne in December 1936 to marry the American divorcée Wallis Simpson.
During his 1923 visit, the Prince planted a sapodilla tree in the garden of Woodbine House to commemorate the occasion. The “Royal Sapodilla” survived for many decades before eventually dying in the 1990s.
In the years following the royal visit, Woodbine House eventually passed into the ownership of Rev. and Mrs. Henderson, who subsequently sold it to Dr. Jabez Taitt and his wife Dorothy. Dr. Taitt was a Barbadian physician who had made British Guiana his home.
With the arrival of the Taitts, a remarkable new chapter in the history of Woodbine House began. The house became a gathering place for artists, musicians, dancers, athletes, writers, intellectuals and political activists. In many ways, Woodbine evolved from one of Georgetown's great private residences into an unofficial cultural salon. The Woodbine House Club met at 294 Murray Street, as Quamina Street was then known. It offered young people instruction and experience in public speaking, debating, elocution, music, ballet and ballroom dancing. Contemporary records show that it was affiliated with the British Guiana Union of Cultural Clubs by 1945.
Dorothy Taitt became closely involved in Georgetown's musical and cultural life, including the Georgetown Philharmonic Orchestra and the Woodbine Club. Her internationally acclaimed daughter Helen Taitt became a pioneering figure in Guyanese dance and established the Guyana School of Dance. Her son Lawrence Taitt became one of British Guiana's outstanding athletes and a champion hurdler, while another son, Dr. Horace Taitt, became a respected psychiatrist as well as an accomplished ballet dancer, theatre producer and art collector.
Woodbine House became a favourite gathering place for many of Guyana's and the Caribbean's distinguished creative figures. Artists and writers associated with the house included Philip Moore, Ron Savory, Stanley Greaves, Ken Corsbie, Michael Gilkes and Derek Walcott.
The Taitt family did more than entertain artists. They supported them. Young painters, writers and performers were sometimes given accommodation, meals and encouragement, allowing them the freedom to develop their talents. Some, in gratitude for that support, left works of art with the family, helping to create the remarkable collection associated with Woodbine House.
Woodbine House also became associated with Guyana’s emerging nationalist movement. According to longstanding oral tradition, Forbes Burnham and Cheddi Jagan met and held political discussions at the house during the early years of their association. These conversations would have taken place before the establishment of the People’s Progressive Party in 1950 and well before the political division that later made them formidable rivals.
The house also witnessed the darker chapters of Guyana's modern political history. During the political turmoil of the late 1970s and early 1980s, Woodbine provided sanctuary to people caught up in the struggles of the period. On the night of 13 June 1980, when historian and political activist Dr. Walter Rodney was killed by an explosion in Georgetown, his brother Donald Rodney, who was seriously injured in the same explosion, was brought to Woodbine House, where he received assistance and medical attention.
A new era began in February 1996, when the historic property opened its doors as Cara Lodge, under the management of Cara Hotels, a Guyanese hospitality company led by Irish-Guyanese hoteliers Paul Stephenson and Shaun McGrath.
The concept was deliberately different from that of a conventional international hotel. Rather than erase the character of the old house, Cara Lodge sought to preserve it, combining modern hospitality with the architecture, atmosphere and stories of one of Georgetown's most remarkable residences.
The hotel quickly established itself as one of the city's distinctive places to stay.
And Woodbine's long tradition of welcoming notable visitors continued. Since becoming Cara Lodge, the house has hosted an extraordinary collection of guests, including Prince Andrew; former United States President Jimmy Carter; Channing Tatum and Mick Jagger.
More than a century after Edward, Prince of Wales danced at Woodbine House, the building therefore continues its long association with visitors from around the world.
The Bottle Restaurant with its columns of English ballast brick and stunning collection of Dutch bottles rapidly became renowned as the best in Guyana, a reputation it still holds today.
When Cara Lodge first opened, it was a small boutique hotel. As its reputation grew, demand made expansion necessary.
Rather than construct a modern building that would overwhelm the historic house, the new wing was deliberately designed to respect the architectural language of Woodbine, incorporating open verandas, timber detailing and hardwood floors.
The expansion added 20 guest rooms and the Woodbine Room, providing a dedicated space for conferences, meetings, dinners and family celebrations. A plaque on the southern wall commemorates the formal opening of the Woodbine Room by renowned Guyanese artist and cultural icon Philip Moore.
The development also created the Patio, an open-air courtyard surrounded by the timber architecture and tropical foliage of the hotel. It has since become one of Cara Lodge's most popular gathering places, a quiet corner beneath the Georgetown sky where the sounds of conversation mingle with the movement of leaves overhead.
Woodbine House has survived almost two centuries of extraordinary change. It has been a family home, a mayoral residence, a gathering place for colonial Georgetown society, a venue for a future king, a haven for artists and dancers, a meeting place for intellectuals and political activists, and finally one of Guyana's best-known historic hotels. Its rooms have welcomed mayors and monarchs, presidents and princes, painters and poets, dancers, musicians, politicians and rock stars.
Yet perhaps the most remarkable thing about Woodbine House is not simply who has passed through its doors. It is that the house is still alive. The Liverpool ironwork commissioned by George Anderson Forshaw remains. The great drawing room in which Georgetown society once gathered became a ballet studio. The rooms that nurtured generations of artists now welcome travellers from around the world. New rooms and spaces have been added, but the verandas, timber, art and stories of the old house remain at its heart.
Today, as Cara Lodge, Woodbine House continues a tradition of hospitality that stretches back through generations, peserving not simply a historic building, but a remarkable piece of the story of Georgetown itself.
To be a guest at Cara Lodge is to become part of its illustrious history. To savour the ambiance of its cultural wealth and diversity is to be in touch with the very soul of Guyana.