Inspired by Years Gone By

At Angama, we are not big on scatter cushions; we only introduce them for comfort or as a photo opportunity. But we are great at storytelling of the eras that inspired the look and feel of the lodges. The Angama Mara story is rooted in the Out Of Africa romance between Baroness Karen von Blixen and aristocratic big-game hunter Denys Finch-Hatton, who swapped his guns for cameras.

While most safari-minded enterprises in Kenya selected to honour Karen Blixen by name, we found ourselves intrigued with Denys and his journeys beyond Kenya. In fact, that is how we found our Fermob furniture (designed for the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris 1923), the Titanic deck chairs and copper accessories, which were the rage in England and France during his travels.

We felt capturing the beauty of the animals and savannah through the lens of a camera made so much sense, so we added a Photographic Studio to guide and assist enthusiastic guests. At the same time, we enthusiastically collected the range of Kodak Brownie cameras of that era for camera enthusiasts to inspect and handle. We even have a few models in the Out of Africa dress-up box, perfect to transport you back in time as you pose overlooking the Mara.

Angama Amboseli has a different story. In 1962, The Lion (Le Lion), a novel by French author Joseph Kessel, was made into a film set in the Amboseli Reserve about a girl and her lion. And so, Amboseli became the ultimate safari for French and European travellers.

When we started putting the lodge's look and feel together, we didn’t buy into the lions because we had the magnificent Super Tuskers all around us to keep us rooted in honest simplicity, size, and texture. We bought into the excitement and colour palette of the '60s era from Mary Quant, Chanel, and Andy Warhol. The Fever Trees inspired our fabulous sofa and our choice of red ochre for the Fermob furniture. Round globe lights and stainless steel accents (both from the '60s era) completed the look.

True to storytelling, you will find a collection of Instamatic cameras in the Amboseli Photographic Studio. This is a series of inexpensive, easy-to-load cameras made by Kodak in 1963. The Instamatic was immensely successful, introducing a generation to low-cost photography and spawning numerous imitators.

As you explore the lodges, take a moment to look at each piece found in your room and let it transport you to a time gone by, whether it’s a colour, a book or perhaps even a doorknob.