In the 1960s, the Manor was purchased by a local investor who leased it to a succession of people, including the late Dennis Lakin, before it fell into disrepair, unoccupied.

Shortly after purchasing the Manor, the Leslie-Melvilles learned that the only remaining Rothschild giraffes in Kenya were in danger due to the purchase by the Kenyan government of an 18,000-acre (73 km2) privately owned ranch (to resettle squatters, some of them speculated to be descendants of victims of land expulsion by the British colonial government) at Soy, near Eldoret, which was the Rothschilds' sole habitat in Kenya.

In 1977, the Kenyan government, through the department of wildlife, relocated some of the Rothschilds to lake Nakuru national park which has proven to be a suitable habitat for the endangered sub species.

Part of the land of the Manor is given over to the Giraffe Centre, run by the African Fund for Endangered Wildlife, a charitable organisation set up by the Leslie Melvilles and Betty's daughter in 1972.

Over the years, the Manor has welcomed guests such as Ellen DeGeneres, Portia de Rossi, Ellie Goulding, Naomi Watts, Eddie Vedder and Walter Cronkite (after whom one of the Manor's resident warthogs was named),[2] Johnny Carson, Brooke Shields and Richard Chamberlain, as well as hosting Richard Branson, Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman on the launch of Virgin Atlantic's London–Nairobi service in 2007.