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"Africa\nA selection of the most luxurious and exotic outposts from across the continent.\nIain and Oria Douglas-Hamilton, world-famous elephant conservationists, decided to open an intimate safari camp in Kenya where guests and locals could experience these wondrous creatures. \u201CHaving metamorphosed my own family-owned farm in Naivasha into a wildlife sanctuary and my house into a lodge, I felt that I had the experience to try my hand at building an eco-friendly camp, keeping it small and using local materials,\u201D explains Oria of what was later named Elephant Watch Camp. Above: An octagonal tent opens onto a thatched veranda. Builders used wood from trees pushed down by elephants to construct the mess tent, which serves as a reception area. Tree branches form the bases of the glass-topped low tables. (August 2007)\nAt the age of nine, New Yorker Elizabeth Warner moved from her mother\u2019s Park Avenue home to live on a farm not far from the capital city of Nairobi, in Kenya. After attending boarding school in England, modeling in cities around Europe and finally becoming a mosaic artist in Los Angeles, Warner decided it was time to return to her childhood home. Situated on 10 acres of bushlands in the Ngong Hills, she designed a house with corrugated-metal roofs, stone walls and multiple French doors. (January 2008)\nWhen Steve and Nicky Fitzgerald decided to build a country retreat away from their bustling Johannesburg hometown, they called upon interior designer Chris Browne to fulfil their desire for \u201Ca comfy, welcoming atmosphere that is easy to run, easy to live in and easy to pack up.\u201D Leopard Creek\u2014a development that combines Steve\u2019s love of golf and the African bush\u2014was the perfect fit for location. The style of the house was inspired by bush lodges. In the entrance hall, Browne \u201Ckept the furnishings to a minimum. The pieces are sculptural.\u201D An antique Chinese table, a vintage hardwood chest and a pair of Cameroon totem poles are grouped near the window wall. (August 2006)\nThe Makanyane Safari Lodge, on a 4,500-acre parcel inside Madikwe, a 185,000-acre game reserve in South Africa, is owned by Susan Harper and David Whittome. Architect Bruce Stafford and designers Jenny Seddon and Tessa Proudfoot collaborated on the lodge\u2019s design. \u201CBruce was asked to create a space that was very comfortable but part of the bush, as opposed to withdrawn from it, so that anyone staying here would really get an experience of being in the wild,\u201D says Garth Kew, Makanyane\u2019s general manager. Guests can opt to spend the night gazing at wildlife from the lodge\u2019s two-story sleep-out hide (above), which overlooks a watering hole. (March 2005)\n\u201CWe drew on the region\u2019s history,\u201D Jon A. Cavanagh, of Symbion International, says of the approach he and fellow architects Pius Muli and Michael Lord took for their renovation of Kampala Serena Hotel, in Kampala, Uganda. They integrated the original structure with new floors and modern facilities. The \u201CMist Bar\u201D was inspired by Uganda\u2019s mountain gorillas and dense forests. Panels carved by local artist Expedito Mwebe decorate the bar front. (December 2007)\n\u201CWe wanted to retain a certain sense of discretion,\u201D says architect Nick Plewman, who, with interior designer Chris Browne, created an eco-retreat in the Phinda Private Game Reserve in South Africa. For part of the year, the owners, Tara and Jessica Getty, rent the house out as a vacation property. Above: The pool area offers a panorama of the bush. (February 2008)\nFounded by former auctioneer Roland Purcell, the beach lodge Greystoke Mahale is on Lake Tanganyika in western Tanzania\u2019s Mahale Mountains National Park, 60 miles from the nearest road. \u201CIts Robinson Crusoe style makes you feel like you\u2019re on an island,\u201D says Emma Campbell, of Interior Idea, who created the d\u00E9cor. Above: The main building, inspired by a thatch-roofed Tongwe chief\u2019s hut, functions as a mess hall. (March 2008)\n\u201CIt\u2019s British colonial with Bedouin influences,\u201D designer Shahira Fahmy says of Sun Boat III, Abercrombie &amp;amp; Kent\u2019s 18-cabin yacht, which she renovated. The 6,400-square-foot, four-deck vessel transports guests down the Nile. You can relax and watch the scenery go by here,\u201D Fahmy says of the veranda. \u201CThe canvas awning can be opened up at night to show a sky full of stars.\u201D (April 2007)\nIn 1994 Paul Verleysen, a Belgian construction engineer and former diplomat who had spent most of his career in Africa, bought 10 acres of land near the Karen/Langata border in Kenya and opened a lodge that he called Ngong House. \u201CI imagined it as a soulful alternative to the hotels in town,\u201D he says, \u201Cwhich are luxurious but all more or less in the same high-rise, air-conditioned modern mold.\u201D Above: In one of five \u201Cstilt\u201D guest houses\u2014 Tree House South\u2014the sitting room \u201Chas a rustic, richly colored environment,\u201D says Verleysen. (April 2007)\nSouth African farmer Manfred Stock stands in front of the 1940s whiskey factory that he converted into his private residence. The structure, an hour outside Cape Town, sits on a 50-acre property that includes vineyards and cattle. \u201CMy obsessions, in no particular order, are wood\u2014doors, windows, beams\u2014ladders, all sorts of luggage, farm machinery redeployed as decor, tables, chairs and light fixtures,\u201D remarks Stock, who creatively incorporated copious amounts of each into his interiors. (December 2005)\nIzingwe, Trisha Wilson\u2019s bush camp, which she and her associates, architects Jim Rimelspach and Jacques Coetzee, designed, is in Welgevonden Game Reserve. After the American designer visited South Africa for the first time, she fell in love with it so much that she decided to open a second office in Johanessburg and build a lodge. \u201CWe created a comfortable retreat in the middle of the bush.\u201D says Wilson. The interior and architectural designer modeled the interiors after a camp in Kenya. Above: Two daybeds dominate a villa\u2019s eucalyptus-floored sala. (September 2006)\n\u201CTo me, Marrakech is like a Moroccan version of Milan, with its long streets and mysterious, inward-looking riads\u2014houses whose fa\u00E7ades give no indication of the beautiful courtyards on the other side,\u201D says designer Campion Platt of his shopping excursion to the bustling North African city. Copper and brass Moroccan lamps hang from the ceiling at shop Tresor des Nomades. (January 2005)"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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