The Muriungi family acquired the house in Karen, the quiet residential suburb on Nairobi’s south-western edge. They then turned its eleven bedrooms into a hotel, opening in 2004. The name is an acronym, made from the first initials of the family. Nairobi National Park is a short drive from the garden gate.
Two and a half acres of garden hold the city at a distance.
Guests arrive into a drawing room, not a reception desk. Two and a half acres of garden hold the city at a distance, and meals are served wherever suits, in the dining room by the fire or at a table set out under the trees. The Giraffe Centre and the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust are both a short drive away, and the Karen Blixen Museum is closer still.
The house reads as a stately Karen residence, white-fronted and shuttered, with parquet floors underfoot. A grand wooden staircase carries a framed hand-drawn map connected to Karen Blixen’s coffee estate, the farm from which this suburb takes its name. Interiors follow the taste of the family’s matriarch, so no two bedrooms are alike, and tall windows keep the marble bathrooms full of daylight.
By evening there is a fire in the drawing room.
Kenyan coffee comes out to the veranda first thing, and the garden’s mature trees keep up a steady birdsong through breakfast. Afternoons run to the pool, to tea on the lawn, or a bicycle ride into Karen’s quiet, shaded lanes. By evening there is a fire in the drawing room. Tables stand candlelit among the trees, and meal times bend around arrivals and late departures.
In the 1950s, the family’s maternal grandfather opened a mkahawa, a coffee shop, in Mwiria Village in Meru, and the hospitality trade has run through the family ever since. Karen came later. The house began as a private residence, and the eleven bedrooms guests sleep in now were once family bedrooms, adapted one by one rather than built for the purpose. Members of the Muriungi family run it today alongside long-serving staff, and House of Waine has never been sold to a hotel group.
Most guests come either side of a safari, and the house is set up for exactly that kind of arrival or departure. Wilson Airport, where the bush flights leave from, is a short drive away. Jomo Kenyatta International lies further off, on the other side of the city, but is reachable without crossing the central business district. Karen stays quiet at any hour, so a dawn arrival off a night flight can become a bath, eggs on the veranda, and a sleep in a dark room before the day’s plans begin.
Rhino, lion and buffalo move against the Nairobi skyline in the first light of the day.
Departures work the same way in reverse. Nothing about the schedule forces an early checkout or a rushed transfer. The pool and the garden stay available until the car comes, a late lunch under the trees is as easy to arrange as a six o’clock breakfast, and staff work around a midnight flight as readily as an early one. It is this flexibility, more than any single feature, that suits House of Waine to the first or last night of a longer Kenya itinerary, when travellers are either newly landed or already packed for home.
An early start puts a vehicle at the park gates for first light. Rhino, lion and buffalo move against the Nairobi skyline in the first light of the day. Game drives stay within daylight hours and on designated tracks, under Kenya Wildlife Service rules. The Sheldrick Wildlife Trust’s orphaned elephants take their milk and mud bath during the late-morning visiting hour, and Rothschild’s giraffes come to eye level from the raised walkway at the Giraffe Centre. The Karen Blixen Museum and the Kazuri Beads Factory fill the afternoon, and none of it asks you to cross into central Nairobi.
accommodation
Eleven bedrooms, individually decorated and named, no two of them alike. Nine can be configured as a single, a double or a twin. Antiques are used throughout, some rooms carry four-poster beds, and the marble bathrooms are lit by windows tall enough to keep them full of daylight.
activities
Game drives in Nairobi National Park, kept to daylight hours with no off-road driving under Kenya Wildlife Service rules. Visits to the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust elephant orphanage, the Giraffe Centre, the Karen Blixen Museum, and the Kazuri Beads Factory and Pottery Centre are all within easy reach. House of Waine keeps bicycles for hire and can arrange massages on site.
conservation
Support runs through nearby institutions rather than an in-house scheme: the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, which rehabilitates orphaned elephants and rhinos, and the Giraffe Centre, whose feeding programme contributes to local conservation. Guests are also directed to the Kazuri Beads Factory and Pottery Centre, where the ceramics are handmade on site.
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.
It is in Karen, the leafy suburb on Nairobi's south western side, in two and a half acres of garden, with eleven bedrooms in what began as a family home. Karen puts you close to the things most people actually want a Nairobi night for, and it is the right side of the city for Wilson airport, which is where safari flights leave from.
Most of our guests use it as the first or last night of a trip rather than a destination in itself, and it does that job better than an airport hotel does. We arrange the transfers either way so nobody is standing at arrivals wondering.
This is the one place in Kenya where the answer is genuinely different, and it is worth knowing. TravelHealthPro, the UK's official travel health service, states that there is very low risk in the city of Nairobi, and recommends awareness of risk and bite avoidance there rather than tablets. The American CDC takes the same view, describing only rare cases in the highly urbanised central part of the city. Very low risk is not the same as no risk. The moment you fly on to the Mara, Laikipia or the coast you are in high risk country, and both sources recommend antimalarial tablets for those areas.
We do not make medical recommendations. That is a conversation between you and your own doctor or a travel clinic, who know your history and can weigh it properly. We are travel planners, not medical professionals, and we would rather say so than imply otherwise.
For most trips, yes, and often it is not optional: international flights land early in the morning or late at night, and the light aircraft to the safari areas leave from Wilson in daylight, so a night in the city is usually the joint rather than an extra.
Two nights make sense if you want a full day for the elephant orphanage, the Karen Blixen house or the giraffe centre without racing, or if you are arriving off a long haul with children and would rather not put them straight onto a second flight. Tell us how you are flying in and we will say which of the two your itinerary actually needs.
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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.
