Elsamere Lodge

The former lakeside home of Joy Adamson, author of Born Free, now a conservation-themed lodge with a small on-site museum and garden cottages.

Long before it was a lodge, Elsamere was home — the lakeside house where Joy Adamson wrote and lived after Born Free made Elsa the lioness a household name worldwide. That history is still the property’s centrepiece: a small on-site museum holds her personal effects, artwork and film memorabilia, and guests staying in the garden cottages are, in a real sense, staying in a piece of conservation history rather than just another lakeshore lodge.

The pace here is deliberately unhurried. Afternoon tea is served on the lawn while colobus monkeys and waterbuck move through the grounds, and Lake Naivasha’s dense bird population — among the richest in the Rift Valley — makes the guided boat trips a highlight even for guests who don’t consider themselves birders. It’s a modest, homely stay rather than a polished resort, and that’s very much the point.

Garden Cottages: Simple, homely en-suite cottages set in Elsamere’s lakeside gardens.

Joy’s Room: A single room within the original house, previously used by Joy Adamson herself, available on request.