Sunrise over Lake Naivasha — first light on still water, birds crossing the horizon.

Lake Naivasha · The Great Rift Valley · KenyaLake Naivasha · Kenya

O’Leleshwa

Three exclusive-use villas on a hill above Lake Naivasha — each taken whole, the lamps lit before you come up for dinner.

The villas → Watch the film →

The villas

Three houses, one hill.

Each is named for a tree that grows on the estate; each keeps its own staff for the length of your stay. They differ in character more than in standard — most guests know which is theirs by the end of this page.

O’Leleshwa

The main house, highest on the hill

A great room the full height of the thatch, with the longest view of the lake.

Sleeps 8 · 4 bedrooms

O’Lorien

The A-frame in the gardens

Thatch pitched to a peak, gardens on every side, a triangle of sky in the gable.

Sleeps 6 · 3 bedrooms

O’Lerai

The quiet edge of the estate

Small and low, at the end of the last path — the deck looks over the wild grass to the lake.

Sleeps 4 · 2 bedrooms

Begin with O’Leleshwa →

A seeded-glass lantern lit on a stone wall under the thatch eave, jasmine climbing beside it at dusk. — A lantern under the thatch eave, jasmine climbing beside it.

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 arrangement

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 country beyond →

The evenings

The day ends by firelight.

The oven is lit before sunset, and the chef cooks where you can watch. Dinner goes wherever you want it that night: the terrace, the firepit, or the long table beneath the great room’s suspended fireplace.

The experience →

A pizza on the peel going into the estate's wood-fired brick oven, flames curling over the logs. — Pizza night — the brick oven at full flame behind the kitchen garden.

The gardens

Built around the gardens.

Eileen Neylan spent two years designing them: terraced beds stepping down the hill, held by dry-stone walls that Joseph Kimani and some fifty apprentices from Kasarani built by hand. Five thousand plants went in. After dark, lanterns light the paths.

Read the gardens →

The free-form pool under an overcast sky, boulder stepping stones breaking the still water, palms and the stone pool house beyond. — The pool below the boulder stepping stones, the pool house beyond.

100% of profit returns to Kasarani, the village that built and staffs the estate. Independently audited, from this first profit year onward.

Our mission

Read our mission →

Drone view of Kasarani at dusk — a football match in progress on the dirt pitch, village rooftops and greenhouses in golden haze. — Kasarani at dusk — a match in progress on the pitch, the greenhouses beyond.

Joseph Kimani, arms crossed and smiling, leaning against the stone jamb of a doorway he built at O'Leleshwa. — Joseph Kimani, master waller, in one of the stone doorways he built.

The people

Built by people who stayed.

Joseph Kimani led the walling, and master craftsmen came from across Kenya for the ironwork, the thatch and the plaster. The young people of Kasarani who apprenticed under them never left: they run the kitchen, the gardens and the front of house today. Jenetta Barry, the General Manager, will meet you when you arrive.

Our story →

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.

A staff member silhouetted against a stone arch, laying the breakfast table on the dining terrace in backlit morning light. — Laying the breakfast table, just after sunrise.

Reservations are handled personally. Write to us, and we’ll write back. — Jenetta Barry, General Manager

Plan your stay →