O'Leleshwa
The main house, highest on the hill
The vaulted one: the great room under makuti thatch, and the longest view of the lake.
Sleeps 8 · 4 bedrooms
Lake Naivasha · The Great Rift Valley · KenyaLake Naivasha · Kenya
O'Leleshwa
Three exclusive-use villas on a hill above Lake Naivasha — each taken whole, and the lamps lit before you come up for dinner.
The villas
Three houses, one hill.
Each is named for a tree or shrub on the estate, and each keeps its own staff for the length of your stay. Choose by temperament rather than size — the hill does the rest.
The setting
Altitude
1,884 metres on the edge of the Great Rift Valley — as high as the Alps, on the equator.
Getting here
Ninety minutes from Nairobi by road; under an hour by charter to the estate's own grass airstrip.
The form
Each villa taken whole, by one party at a time — with its own chef, butler and housekeeper.
The reason
A working social enterprise — the whole of the profit returns to Kasarani, the village that built the estate.
The evenings
The day ends by firelight.
The wood oven is lit before sunset; your chef cooks where you can watch. The long table is laid wherever the evening suggests — the terrace, the firepit, the great room under its cone of flame.
The gardens
The gardens, designed over two years.
Eileen Neylan drew them — terraced beds stepping down the hill, held by dry-stone walls laid by Joseph Kimani and more than fifty apprentices from Kasarani. Some five thousand plants went into the ground. The planting is the estate's whole horizon, and the paths carry lanterns for after dark.
100% of profit returns to Kasarani, the village that built and staffs the estate. Independently audited, every year.
Our mission
The people
The stone is local. So are the hands.
Joseph Kimani led the walling; master craftsmen came from across Kenya for the ironwork, the thatch, the plaster. The young people of Kasarani who apprenticed on the build now run the estate — kitchen, gardens, front of house. You will be received by Jenetta Barry, the General Manager.
And then, morning
Breakfast on the dining terrace.
Whatever the evening was, the morning is quiet: coffee on the terrace, the lake catching the first light below.
Reservations are handled personally. Write to us, and we'll write back. — Jenetta Barry, General Manager