Stone colonial-era farmhouses sit on long, tree-covered plots with the Ngong Hills on the horizon.
What Karen looks like
and the streets branching off it run wide, quiet and paved under heavy tree cover, past hedged and walled plots large enough to keep a neighbour's roof out of frame. Minimum acreage zoning keeps the houses spaced well apart, and Ngong Forest borders one edge of the suburb in solid woodland.
The is a one storey stone farmhouse under a peaked tile roof, with a deep veranda facing a long lawn under cypress and other tall trees, reached by its own gravel driveway and stone walkways. Houses in the same stone and tile style stand on plots throughout the area. Each is single storey, set well back from the road behind a hedge or a wall, with its own long lawn running up from the gate.
Golf greens at open onto the same tree line, with the Ngong Hills visible beyond the gardens on a clear day. , a low row of shops off , is the area's main commercial strip. runs its own horse racing grounds a few kilometres east, inside the same low density stretch of Nairobi.
Shot in Karen
For Out of Africa, the real Karen Blixen house was unavailable, since it was then a government health training facility. The production renovated an existing farmhouse on the Ngong Dairy property instead, stripping the ivy from its walls and adding a veranda and a cookhouse to match the original.
Out of Africa, 1985
The production dressed this existing farmhouse to stand in for Karen Blixen's own house, renovating it with a new veranda and a cookhouse. No source gives the farmhouse's exact plot or street address, so this pin marks its approximate position within the Ngong Dairy property rather than a doorway.
What Karen can double for
Constantia in Cape Town, South Africa
Constantia's Cape Dutch farm estates sit on the same scale of walled, tree covered plot as Karen, with old stone and whitewashed farmhouses under gum avenues standing in for an early twentieth century colonial farm. The wide, quiet roads and heavy tree cover read the same way in a wide shot. Constantia's farmhouses usually carry gabled Cape Dutch fronts and vineyard rows that Karen's plainer stone and tile houses do not, so hold on gateways and driveways rather than full facades. Try searching colonial farm estates now.
Nuwara Eliya, Sri Lanka
Nuwara Eliya's colonial era tea estate bungalows share the same single storey stone and tile roof scale as Karen's farmhouses, set on large grounds under tall trees and hedges. Both sit at altitude with hills visible beyond the garden line. Nuwara Eliya's hill fog and visible tea rows give away the setting in a wide shot, so a tighter frame on the bungalow porch and garden travels better. Try searching colonial tea estate bungalow now.
