The four-bedroom 1940s colonial-style bungalow and Vanessa Hanka. PHOTO | COURTESY
Vanessa Hanka sold her London house to settle in Nanyuki town,
fulfilling her teenage dream when she climbed Mount Kenya on her 21st
birthday.
“Sunrise and sunset have become part of my
life every morning. No winter or spring but a perfect, romantic weather
on the foothills of Mount Kenya everyday,” she told BD Life when we
visited her at Mukima Ridge, a gated estate in Nanyuki with 10 houses,
each standing on 15 acres of pristine olive shrubs and grasslands.
After she bought the four-bedroom 1940s colonial-style bungalow, Ms Hanka spent about two years sprucing up the interiors.
She
shipped in furniture collected during her work-life as a banker and
headhunter in London as well as while staying in Singapore and Hong Kong
where she sold designer lamp stands and other decorative home fixtures
sourced from India, Burma and New York.
“I made it into a perfect home full of love for my children aged
19 and 18. It restored my happiness that I had lost when I divorced my
Czech husband,” she says.
In Nanyuki, where she has
lived for five years, Ms Hanka opened two shops dealing in designer
rustic lampstands, curtains and collector items. But she closed down the
shops due to poor sales.
“No one appreciated the pain I
went through to import the products that they kept asking for a
bargain. I need an income to pay for my children’s university education
and so I have no choice but to sell my house to release equity,” she
says.
The house is being sold at Sh100 million together with its fittings and fixtures.
“But,
I am not leaving Kenya, Kenya is the Mecca of outdoor
enthusiasts-mountain biking, rock climbing, canyoning and wildlife
connoisseurs,” she adds.
Her love for rustic decor
starts right from the entrance with a Lamu door handmade by Ali “Skanda”
Abdalla Ali, a master carver and dhow builder born to a family of
crafts in Lamu.
There
is a water fountain leading to a court that she turned into a barbecue
spot for many a night when friends visit. Four lampstands from South of
France adorn the corners of the rectangular water fountain.
Next
to the fountain is an Indian doorway from Burma that she shipped in
together with her furniture. She has since transformed the Indian
doorway into a human-size mirror holder.
Around the
house is a garden raced with over 100 species of flowers. An ardent art
collector, Ms Hanka says, she bought some of the old drawings from eBay
and others from Kenyan artists.
“I bought this
Cameroonian feather-made headdress, Nepalese Kukri knife, Indian candle
holder, handwoven Indian mats among others as mementoes from my numerous
trips abroad,” she says as we enter the sitting room.
On a rustic four-legged table are stacks of leather-bound albums made by a self-help group of Malaysian handicapped men.
At the drawing room, there are tens of history books about Kenyan communities.
Ms Hanka’s favourite room is the cinema room which had portraits of legend actors and actresses pinned on the walls.
She
says most evenings are spent at the veranda facing Mt Kenya or at her
pagoda on a hanging bed watching the sun go down the Aberdare Ranges.
The property also has a game room with a pub, table tennis, snooker table, gym equipment as well as darts boards.
“It
took me two years to turn this house with its three-bedroom cottage and
a two-bedroom staff house into a home,” she says, adding that the house
sits in the middle of wildlife.
Nanyuki is courting
wealthy Kenyans and expatriates buying second and third luxury homes in
Kenya as it has a colonial charm and the expansive land is unspoiled.
Mukima
Ridge developed by architect Leslie Ducksworth is one of the high-end
properties in Nanyuki. Ms Ducksworth, a Briton, also owns the exclusive
Kizingoni Beach houses in Lamu.
Together with her
husband, David Campbell, they started a property business in Shela, Lamu
about 30 years ago which involves restoring old houses and selling them
to wealthy expatriates.
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