At dawn, when the water is calm, we go to the beach, and it is breathtaking,”
Al Petrie says. “At night, under a full moon, we stand by the pool or on the
beach and stare at the African sky. You feel very small and very privileged,
and there is nowhere else in the world you want to be.”
The white-sand beach that Petrie, 38, who starred in the BBC period drama
Cranford, likes to contemplate, and his children - Gus, 8, and twins Cal and
Brodie, 5 – like to “ferret” around on, is just 30 yards from his holiday
home in Watamu, a small, laid-back fishing vil-lageon Kenya’s Indian Ocean
coast.
Their “great big adventure” began in 2005, when Petrie and his wife, the
actress Lucy Scott, 42, who played Charlotte Lucas in the BBC adaptation of
Pride and Prejudice, went on holiday to Kenya for the first time. Like many
Britons before them, they fell in love with the romance of Africa and, in
something of a modern-day colonial twist, made inquiries about property
prices.
The couple bought a 1960s house, “in an extraordinary location, but in a sorry
state, with a rather dark, jungly garden”, for £190,000. Petrie took on the
project, galvanising a local workforce to remodel it into a four-bedroom,
four-bathroom villa with an open-plan living room and kitchen. They finished
the job within six months and kept to the £40,000 budget. “We call it
Arcadia, our imagined place of rural bliss,” Petrie says. “That said, it is
still an investment – it wasn’t just a question of splashing money about.”
They let the house out for 25 weeks a year (enough to pay for the permanent
staff of three, the garden and the annual repainting made necessary by the
strong, salty wind), and any profit goes towards flights, which cost about
£2,000 for the family. It is possible to fly direct to Mombasa – 90 minutes’
drive on a newly tarmacked road – or you can go via Nairobi to Malindi, 10
miles up the coast. Petrie and his clan can leave their home in Tooting,
south London, at 5pm and be relaxing in the pool by midmorning.
The Kenyan coast has long attracted Britons in search of hot sun (temperatures
are in the 30s for most of the year), clear turquoise seas and something a
little exotic – Mombasa is definitely not Malaga, and visitors to the region
are advised to take antimalarial drugs.
Gradually, the old colonial class that retired to the seaside villages and
resorts of Malindi, Lamu, Kilifi and Pemba is being replaced by a generation
of younger, wealthier professionals, who are buying up crumbling houses and
scruffy plots by the ocean and creating luxurious holiday homes.
“Prices have risen by about 20% a year for the past five years,” says Ben
Wood-hams, director of the Knight Frank agency in Nairobi. “There is a huge
demand for high-quality property by the ocean, not just from the British and
Europeans, but from the growing middle class in Kenya.”
Malindi is an old trading town established in the 12th century, with an
air-port served by a shuddering 20-seater plane. Vasco da Gama stopped off
on his way to India in 1498, and it was the first port of call for the
British and Italian tourists who swarmed to this coast in the 1980s. Today,
the Swahili-style bunga-lowsare a little scruffy, but regeneration is under
way. Flavio Briatore, managing director of the Renault Formula One team, who
already owns a grandiose villa in the town, has plans to create a
“billionaire’s paradise” of flats and villas.
Further north lies Lamu, a tiny speck of an island and the oldest port on the
East African coast. It has long been a destination for aristocrats and
Hollywood stars – among them Princess Caroline of Monaco and her husband,
Prince Ernst August of Hanover, who owns three properties in the area.
In the old town, a narrow, higgledy-piggledy place with a skyline of minarets
that was added to Unesco’s list of conservation sites in 2001, you can still
pick up a cramped townhouse for £20,000, but it would need a lot of work,
and being in the (relatively) bustling centre doesn’t suit everyone.
Instead, most buyers head two miles south to Shela beach, where one can spot
the domed, thatchedmakuti roofs poking out through the tropical palms. House
prices reflect the international demand: a family villa sleeping eight will
start at £800,000.
New developments are springing up along Kenya’s 330-mile coast, targeting
overseas buyers who want long-haul luxury – and an investment. In Watamu,
work has begun, using rickety scaffolding, with cement mixed by hand and
passed in small bowls down a chain of blue-clad builders – on Medina Palms,
one of the country’s few purpose-built residential oceanside resorts.
It is the vision of Nigel and Lesley-Anne Rowley, developers from
Gloucester-shire.The seven-acre plot, set amid tropical palms on a
powder-white beach, will feature 50 pink-walled properties, all modelled on
the Rowleys’ holiday home, the Dhow House. Among those who have put down a
deposit is Sonia Irvine, sister of the racing driver Eddie Irvine and a VIP
party planner for the F1 circuit, who has opted for one of the best
ocean-view plots. Prices start at £395,000 for the four-bedroom lodges, due
to be finished by 2010, rising to £1.3m for a six-bed villa. There are also
33 flats, with prices from £150,000 for a two-bedder with garden.
Medina Palms, in common with almost all new holiday resorts aimed at the
well-heeled buyer with a conscience, has green credentials: solar energy
will heat water; the pool pump system will be wind-powered; bio-digesters
will recycle grey water for use in the gardens; and the service charges,
which cover staff and a chef, include a donation to local charities and the
Born Free Foundation.
The desire to give back, rather than just “fly and flop”, has led growing
numbers of homeowners to invest in projects to protect turtles or big game
in the national parks. Others, like Petrie and Scott, are looking to set up
links between their children’s London school and those in Watamu; one owner
is funding an orphanage.
“There is a huge demand for homes by the ocean,” says Ivor Engel, director of
Watamu Property Services, who is jointly marketing Medina Palms. Since
moving to a “shack” in Watamu in 2000, Engel and his wife, Sara, have gained
first-hand experience of dealing with the buying and selling process, as
well as Kenyan bureaucracy (much of it inherited from the British empire),
which led them to set up a business managing holiday homes.
“Only a handful of properties come to the market each season,” he says. “You
can pick up a small house for £180,000, but anything with a halfway decent
sea view will start closer to £400,000. It is not unusual to see a price tag
of £1m for the best houses.”
The demand is mirrored in the holiday lettings market: “When it’s going well,
the rental market is great,” says Engel, who is also handling the letting
side of Medina Palms. “You can be fully booked about 10 weeks of the year
and average £20,000 per annum. But the holiday market can be easily
bruised.” That was the case at the beginning of this year, when violence
flared up in the months following the election last December, which saw
riots in Nairobi’s sprawling Kibera slums and more than 1,000 people killed.
Tourist numbers fell and traffic on Engel’s web-site dropped by 30% between
January and May – even though the holiday homes he lets are almost 300 miles
away on the coast. Since July, it has been up by 20% on last year.
Even on the coast, security is an issue, and worries have further increased
after the deaths of two Britons during robberies at their homes this year,
including Graham Warren, who was killed in Watamu in January. His widow
plans to stay in Kenya.
All thoughts of corrupt governments, tribal tensions and violence may seem far
away when sitting on the roof terrace sipping a sundowner, the sea breeze
providing some respite from the heat.
Leave the somnolent luxury of the villa, with its staff, pool and privacy,
however, and you face an immediate reality check.
Almost half of the Kenyan population lives below the food poverty line,
according to British government figures. The roads are edged with dusty red
paths busy with women carrying firewood and water, men cycling to and from
work, wandering goats and cows, and chickens pecking in the dust.
Most of the larger properties will have sophisticated alarm systems, and
almost all households employ an askari – typically a Masai, who, bejewelled
and dressed in red robes, will stand guard with a long stick, accompanied by
an aggressive-looking dog.
There are more extreme security measures in place at Vipingo Ridge, a
2,500-acre former sisal estate 20 minutes drive north of Mombasa, where 300
women are planting grass by hand to create two of the region’s few 18-hole
golf courses. A 10ft-high fence runs the length of the boundary, and the
sales brochure for the new development promises further perimeter security,
including guards on horseback.
Yet such stringent security measures are par for the course in Kenya, where
they are installed as much to appease the anxieties of potential buyers – in
this case, of the 147 properties with prices starting at £250,000 for a
two-bedroom flat, £300,000 for a three-bedder and £400,000 for a
four-bedroom villa – as to deter any burglars.
“Communities need to get along. They need each other,” says Alastair Cavenagh,
a co-director of Vipingo Ridge. “If people are not happy outside the gates,
they’re not going to be happy inside.”
Medina Palms; 020 7861 1567, www.knightfrank.com
. Vipingo Ridge; 00 254 41 32034, www.vipingoridge.com
Three more palm-fringed properties on the Kenyan coast
Lamu £2.88m This 18-acre Swahili-style farm is on the coast between Lamu town
and Shela. The restored five-bedroom, three-bathroom villa has two large
reception rooms, a pool, a one-bedroom guest house and separate staff
quarters. The furnishings and furniture, much of it antique, are available
by separate negotiation. Knight Frank; 00 254 20 444 0212, www.knightfrank.com
Watamu £1m With four bedrooms and four bathrooms, this whitewashed villa is
set in three acres on the banks of Midas Creek, just south of Watamu. It has
a covered living area, a roof terrace with sea views and a freeform swimming
pool. There is also a tiny private beach with access to the creek. The sale
includes all furniture, a small speedboat and a car. Knight Frank; 00
254 20 444 0212, www.knightfrank.com
Watamu £220,000 Set in six acres of palm trees, this thatched villa, built by
an interior designer, has seven double bedrooms, a bar, a large courtyard
reception area, a den/TV room and staff quarters. You can hear the Indian
Ocean, but it is not within easy walking distance – if it were, the agent
says, the price would be three times higher. Watamu Property Services;
00 254 42 32504, www.discoverwatamu.com
