Karen Blixen Museum: Tracing the roots of the posh Karen surburb

Karen Blixen’s Karen House     Photo: Sergio Pitamitz / Corbis

Sixteen kilometers from Nairobi City Centre, accessible through both Ngong and Langata roads, stands a house of monumental proportions. Built in 1910, the three bed roomed house is today a museum courtesy of the Danish and Kenyan governments as its original owner, highly acclaimed Danish author Karen Blixen, made it her home from 1914 to 1931.

The house and grounds were presented to Kenya as an Uhuru gift by the Danish government. To refresh your mind, the movie Out of Africa is based on her passionate writings about her life in Kenya, British East Africa then. The up-market Karen suburb is also named after her as it was part of her expansive six thousand acres coffee farm. Blixen's repeated attempts to grow coffee in the area were foredoomed because neither the soil nor the altitude was right for such a venture.

Financial ruin forced her sell it off and return to Denmark.Various 1920 rusty tractor models dot the extensive lawns telling of the age the farm was alive as do a coffee bean husker and sorter with oddball parts imported from Liverpool and Aberdeen.

Also sharing the manicured lawns are various indigenous and exotic trees including palms, Norfolk pines and columnar cypress, and a unique, almost a century year old, candelabria euphorbia plant that resemble a giant cactus.

A gravelled walkway from Karen Road leads up to the three bayed stone walled, red roof tiled manor. On the facade, a long verandah whose roof is held by eight stone columns welcomes the wide glass paned door. The building's character, however, is portrayed by a chimney to the left of the ridge, two imposing gables and a distinct dormer with a clock in the middle. Not to miss are the stone finials on the chimney and garbles which complete structure. The detail is extended to the back with less emphasis of course.

The front door is rarely opened so the right end of the building where the adjoining kitchen stands is the official entrance. Most of the furniture and implements remain as they were during Karen's stay. A wooden sink and an iron stove and oven stand out as glass milk churns, porcelain containers and iron pans and kettles give a feel of how meals were prepared in what one can tell was a true farm house.

Leaving the kitchen, a side door opens up to an economical narrow hall way with a wall where Karen's great moments are immortalised on hanging photos on one side. Timber is the choice material for the interior with mahogany beams holding the high ceilings, lining the floor and panelling the rooms. The paned glass and lace curtains filter in natural light plunging the rooms into dimness underscoring the yesteryear mood.

Three rooms that originally served as a guest bedroom pantry and study are on either side of the hallway that opens up to the dining hall and living room. The dining and living rooms let out through the back and front doors respectively and are separated by wooden sliding doors.

The 1920's saw the emergence of art decor and modernism styles whose influences are instant. Both saw the incorporation of geometric designs and use of material like decorative stone such as marble and precious gems and metal as inlays in furniture. Single pieces rather than clutter for furniture were preferred.

In Karen's abode, unique pieces are not scarce. Standing out among other oil paintings, is one of an aging Karen painted by French artist Rene' Bouche' and another of a Kikuyu beauty touted to be the fairest of all girls her age. In all rooms various stunning pieces wait including animal skins, elephant foot footstools, a replica of a RCA Victor gramophone on which Karen played Mozart concertos, a lantern she was said to hung outside whose traffic-light-like colours blink indicating she was home as well as the mood she was in, a brass crested wooden chest in the dining room, and floor-to-ceiling library shelves marked with a small brass plaque, DFH hold copies of Denys Finch Hatton books, Karen's fling.

Next to the fireplace in the living room has a door covered by a blind that leads into what was Karen's bedroom. All the bedroom's walls adopt a white colour finish except for the roof beams that retain the dark wood colour keeping with the furniture that is mostly white as well.

Noteworthy, is the fact that there are no built-in wardrobes in any of the bedrooms. From the dining room area is you walk straight in another bedroom where Blixen's ex-husband Swedish born, Baron Bror von Blixen-Finecke and later Denys used to pack.

Before you get to it however is two doors, one is a second entrance to Blixen's room and the other, the bathrooms entrance. A white solid stone wall is used for the bathroom which houses an iron bathtub, wooden dresser holding a porcelain wash basin and jug.

A wooden box with a circular hole at the top served as the toilet. A collecting container was emptied and replaced through a hole in the wall. Back to the dining area, through its door and an outstanding view of Ngong hills greets you as walk out into the impeccable backyard.

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