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A rare opportunity has arisen to purchase a home designed by the formidable interiors expert Marie-Paule Pellé.
Marie-Paule Pellé is an interior designer with a flair for creating living spaces that are both highly sophisticated and easy to live in. Her finely tuned sense of how to live is evident throughout Siani, a spectacular estate on the Kenyan island of Lamu.
As a journalist and interior designer who has worked for Vogue Décoration in Paris and House & Garden in New York, Marie-Paule Pellé has travelled the world looking for the perfect home. It is a job that has taken her to palaces in Rajasthan and jungle estates in Vietnam via 18th-century hotel particuliers in her native Paris.
With such rich experience, Pellé has cultivated a highly sophisticated sense of how to live that is evident throughout the homes she has decorated. And no more so than at the Sinai estate on Lamu, a speck of an island off the coast of Kenya that has a reputation for attracting the jet set. Set on the beach amid lush gardens, Pellé transformed this traditional merchant’s house using the skills of local craftsmen and filled it with extraordinary furniture – sofas from Nairobi, pillows from Pakistan, china from Vietnam and various pieces from Morocco and India. Seemingly simple, the effortless appearance belies Pellé’s finely tuned eye for exquisite objects.
As the Sinai estate becomes available on the market – if you love it, buy it, if you can’t afford it, rent it – Marie-Paule Pellé talks to us about her love for Lamu and how she dreams of living in a tent with a Picasso.
Marie-Paule Pelle’s definition of luxury?
Space, peace, water, silence and beauty.
If luxury were a moment?
At dawn in August at the Alpine-style refuge on Mount Cerro in the Andes, because you can still look at the beautiful summits and mountains covered with beautiful snow before stupid humanity helps to destroy it completely – last chance!
If luxury were a place?
A former octagonal hunting lodge that once belonged to the Furstenberg family in the middle of a huge forest just outside of Prague, Czechoslovakia.
If luxury were a person?
If luxury were an object?
A lucky black box by Elsa Peretti at Tiffany’s
How did you find this house?
I was visiting Lamu – an island that I love – and was staying at the Peponi hotel when one morning I was walking along the beach and I suddenly saw something through the woods and through the green… the ruins of this house. It was magical because it was like a jungle – very lush and overgrown. I knew immediately that I wanted to renovate it, but it took me 20 years to do so. A friend of mine eventually bought it and I spent three years transforming it into the Siani Estate.
Tell us about the house.
The place was originally built by Indian merchants, who named it Siani. The situation is incredible – it’s like an untouched nature reserve. There is jasmine and many exotic plants, rare birds, monkeys and lots of mango trees. Huge trees! When I arrived the house only had one veranda, so I built an extension to give it more terraces. There is one important rule when you work on a house in a place like Lamu - take the skills of the people who will be working on the house and ask them to do only what they know how to do well. There are some Europeans who build houses here who want tiled bathrooms. But the people of Lamu are not Italians! My walls are finished with a type of Moroccan effect called neru, and Lamu builders are particularly good at this. I also added Arabic inscriptions throughout the house (though they’re not religious). On the steps I have the Arabic alphabet and on the walls the mottos of very important old Omani families. Inside, it’s filled with beautiful furniture that I have bought on my travels around the world.
Tell us about the architecture of Lamu
There’s one architectural style in Lamu called the Swahili style, which is a mix of Indian and Arabic aesthetics. But there are newcomers to the island who build as if they were in Palm Beach or Miami. Except my friend, the late Antonio Ferro, who went to Oman and was very impressed by the architecture there and decided to build his house, Fort Ferro – it is imposing but at the same time integrated into the landscape.
What is life like on Lamu?
There are three ways to live on this island. You can be part of the jet-set scene in Shela village. Or, if you want to be quiet, you can stay at home and relax by the sea. Or, if you want to see the real Lamu, you go into town and meet the local people.
What do you recommend a visitor do on Lamu?
I like to visit the two or three museums, which are very interesting. You can visit the carpenters and their little souvenir shops, where they build beautiful miniature boats. Order a freshly squeezed fruit juice from the small cafés on the quay in Lamu town. Go for rides on dhows at sunset with good drinks and a cool box. Visit the Kijani hotel, which is very nice with its small garden where you can eat – Pierre the owner is a charming man. Or stay at the Lamu House hotel in town where the food is excellent. Or you could go to the Peponi hotel to see-and-be-seen and gossip and have good food. Or you could go and walk the 20km of beach. Go to the archipelago and try to find beautiful shells or look for some of the Ming dynasty porcelain that sometimes washes up.
For your own home, what do you look for in a house?
The architecture, the environment, the location. I’m really attracted to remoteness – that’s very important to me. Then I fall in love with the house. I’ve lived in very modern houses and very old houses. I’ve found a house in Rajasthan that is incredible. It’s a very modern-looking house that belongs to one of the Maharajas that I know well. It was his father’s hunting lodge and is like a boat of stone in the desert. He’s taken all the doors and windows out because they would be stolen otherwise. So it’s like a stone monument. It was built in the 1920s so has this totally modern style and is completely unspoilt with no neighbours. I would love to live there.
You have seen some of the world’s most amazing private residences. Which are your favourite houses around the world?
There are so many! The house of Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam is one of my favourite places. He had two houses; one in the jungle, one in Hanoi. In Hanoi he lived in what was like a monk’s house. Part of the house is on poles and everything is made from wood. Where he lived was like a cell, very simple but very chic. It’s really fantastic. Then there’s the house in Seychelles that belongs to Gian Paolo Barbieri, the photographer. The house that belonged to the writer Curzio Malaparte on Capri is another place I would love to live in. It’s on a cliff overlooking the Mediterranean. Very modern, with steps up to the house leading to the flat roof. One of the best houses in the world! I’m always crazy for pink houses because I love St Petersburg. My country house is pink and there is a pink house on Mauritius that I used to rent that was built by an English aristocrat. It had a closed veranda, which they called the tearoom and where there were three big Indian windows overlooking the sea. I had the best holidays ever there.
What do you envision as the ideal way to live?
I don’t like objects or possessions. I really understand what Pierre Bergé did when he sold his and Yves Saint Laurent’s collection – that was very clever. My preferred house is a tent. You could go anywhere! It would be a wonderful tent. I’d have a painting that I love, maybe a Picasso, then beautiful folding furniture like they did in the old days and drink fantastic wine because you can transport wine. Or I would build a boat. There are very good boat builders in Lamu. What will be the great luxury of the future? Space, water, beauty and peace. You find this on a boat.
For more information on renting or buying Siani Farm: www.sianifarmlamu.com