Tonio Trzebinski, a painter, and his wife Anna, a fashion designer, built this house in 1992 as their family home on Nairobi’s Karen-Langata edge. Now known as Hemingways Eden, it keeps its nine rooms across those original buildings. A stay feels less like checking into a hotel than moving into a life still being lived among the work, where the defining draw remains the art itself.
A stay feels less like checking into a hotel than moving into a life still being lived among the work.
Original canvases, bronzes and hand-formed ceramics fill the rooms of what is, in truth, a working private collection. Beyond the walls the house borders the Giraffe Sanctuary forest, indigenous woodland that shelters more than 200 species of bird. The grounds have a life of their own. Warthogs, monkeys, peacocks and sacred ibises move through by day, and the calls of hyenas and bush babies drift from the trees at nightfall.
After Tonio died in 2001, Anna carried on shaping the home’s artistic character, opening it to guests as OneFortyEight before it became Hemingways Eden. The collection stayed deeply personal throughout. Tonio’s own work travelled from figurative realism toward abstraction across his career, and it hangs among bronze sculptures by their son Stanislaw, while Samburu and Maasai artefacts sit alongside contemporary African paintings.
Samburu and Maasai artefacts sit alongside contemporary African paintings.
That same spirit carries into the on-site Artisanal Gallery, which shows and sells the work of Kenyan designers, jewellers and craftspeople. The nine rooms spread across the Main House, the Studio and a self-contained Cottage, furnished with hand-carved Lamu-style canopy beds, antiques and original artwork. The main house is timber-fronted, the studio walled with tall glass, and the mood favours verandas, fireplaces and candlelit dinners over the pace of a city hotel.
Since December 2022 the house has run under Hemingways Collection through a ten-year management agreement, taking the Hemingways Eden name. The aim throughout has been to hold onto the personal, lived-in quality Anna Trzebinski built into the place while raising the standard of service around it. The art, the artefacts and the family’s history remain the point of a stay, an intention that runs through everything a guest encounters, from the pictures on the walls to the unhurried rhythm of the days.
Days here divide between wildlife and the city’s creative life. The Giraffe Centre and its endangered Rothschild’s giraffes lie a short drive away, with the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust elephant orphanage and Nairobi National Park a little further still. There the game drives track lions, rhinos and giraffes against the city skyline, an unusual meeting of the two. And for those drawn to the older stories of this landscape, the Karen Blixen Museum sits within easy reach.
The art, the artefacts and the family’s history remain the point of a stay.
Art tours are the distinctive offering. They carry guests to working studios and galleries across Nairobi, among them Kitengela Glass, BrushTu Art Studio, Circle Art Agency and Redhill Art Gallery, to meet the artists and craftspeople directly. Further afield, the Ngong Hills offer a day’s trekking across their seven peaks. A garden treatment room handles the spa, so an afternoon of quiet can follow a morning among the studios, and the days move at whatever pace a guest chooses.
Dining centres on The Deck, an open-air restaurant looking out over the sanctuary forest, where the kitchen turns African, British and American dishes on produce from local farmers’ markets and the garden. Breakfast can arrive as a hamper in the room, and guests taking the Main House or Studio for exclusive use can arrange private dining, with a Chef’s Table live-cooking experience running subject to availability. Halal, vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free needs are all met without fuss.
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accommodation
Nine en-suite rooms are spread across three buildings. The Main House holds three bedrooms, among them a master with super king bed, daybed, walk-in wardrobe and forest-view veranda, while the Studio adds five rooms, three of them double-storey lofts, and a self-contained Cottage brings its own kitchenette and terrace. Hand-carved Lamu-style beds and original artwork feature throughout.
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activities
A short drive brings the Giraffe Centre and its Rothschild's giraffes, with the Sheldrick elephant orphanage and Nairobi National Park a little further, the latter given over to game drives among lions and rhinos. Curated art tours reach studios and galleries across Nairobi, meeting artists directly, and beyond them lie Ngong Hills trekking, the Karen Blixen Museum and garden spa treatments to round out the days.
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conservation
The house partners with One Horizon, a community organisation supporting vulnerable women and children through education, healthcare and skills training. Guest visits to the Giraffe Centre support the breeding of endangered Rothschild's giraffes, as do those to the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, and the grounds themselves are landscaped with indigenous plants to draw birdlife.
Get in touch and let’s start the conversation. An initial consultation helps us understand what you’re looking for, whether that’s specific experiences, luxury touches, or marking a special occasion, and from there we’ll guide you through what’s possible so you can decide if we’re the right fit.
No domestic flight is needed. Hemingways Eden Residence sits on Nairobi's forested Karen-Langata edge, so you transfer by road from Jomo Kenyatta International or Wilson airport, around an hour depending on traffic. We arrange the transfer to meet your flight.
The house borders the Giraffe Sanctuary forest, and the Giraffe Centre, the Sheldrick elephant orphanage and Nairobi National Park are all close by, which makes it an easy first or last night around a safari.
Nairobi is one of the few parts of Kenya that official guidance treats as very low risk for malaria, its highland altitude of around 1,700 metres and urban setting keeping transmission low, so the CDC and TravelHealthPro class the city as very low risk rather than a standard malaria zone.
When you fly on to the safari areas, though, you enter malaria country, so most guests take antimalarial tablets for the whole trip. Please confirm the right course for your itinerary with a travel clinic or your doctor, and take the usual care against bites after dark.
Nairobi's altitude keeps it mild the year round, with warm days and cool, sometimes chilly evenings, and the forested Karen-Langata edge feels green and fresh. The rains bring afternoon showers and lift the birdlife in the surrounding woodland.
Pack light layers with a jumper for the evenings, comfortable clothes for the house and garden, and sun protection for the day. A light waterproof is worth having in the wetter months.
As a first or last night around a safari, Hemingways Eden Residence works well the year round, since Nairobi stays mild whenever you come. The dry months are clearest for any game viewing in Nairobi National Park nearby, and the surrounding forest is alive with birds, more than two hundred species, throughout.
The timing here really follows your international flights and the art-and-garden character of the house rather than a wildlife season.
The house was built by a painter and a fashion designer as their family home, and the defining draw is the art itself: original canvases, bronzes and ceramics fill the rooms as a working private collection, with an on-site gallery showing and selling the work of Kenyan makers. A stay feels less like a hotel than moving into a life lived among the work.
Beyond the walls the grounds have their own wildlife, warthogs, monkeys and birds by day, hyenas and bush babies at night, and curated art tours reach studios and galleries across Nairobi. It suits guests drawn to art and design as much as to the wildlife nearby.
It leans more towards adults and older children than towards very young ones, since it is a working art collection in a private home rather than a set-up built around children. The child policy has varied over time, so rather than guess, we will confirm the current position for your dates directly with the house.
If you are travelling with younger children we can suggest a nearby Nairobi property that suits families better, or arrange the house on an exclusive-use basis where that works. Tell us your family's ages and we will advise honestly.
rated five stars by our clients
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our approach
Every journey starts with a conversation. We take the time to understand your vision before we start planning.
Whether by phone or in person, we work with you directly to shape something that is considered, personal, and expertly delivered.
