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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. \"Having 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,\" 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's 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 \"a comfy, welcoming atmosphere that is easy to run, easy to live in and easy to pack up.\" Leopard Creek\u2014a development that combines Steve's 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 \"kept the furnishings to a minimum. The pieces are sculptural.\" 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's design. \"Bruce was asked to create a space that was very comfortable but part of the bush, as opposed to withdrawn from it, so that anyone staying here would really get an experience of being in the wild,\" says Garth Kew, Makanyane's general manager. Guests can opt to spend the night gazing at wildlife from the lodge's two-story sleep-out hide (above), which overlooks a watering hole. (March 2005)\n\"We drew on the region's history,\" 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 \"Mist Bar\" was inspired by Uganda's mountain gorillas and dense forests. Panels carved by local artist Expedito Mwebe decorate the bar front. (December 2007)\n\"We wanted to retain a certain sense of discretion,\" 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's Mahale Mountains National Park, 60 miles from the nearest road. \"Its Robinson Crusoe style makes you feel like you're on an island,\" says Emma Campbell, of Interior Idea, who created the d\u00E9cor. Above: The main building, inspired by a thatch-roofed Tongwe chief's hut, functions as a mess hall. (March 2008)\n\"It's British colonial with Bedouin influences,\" designer Shahira Fahmy says of Sun Boat III, Abercrombie &amp;amp; Kent's 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,\" Fahmy says of the veranda. \"The canvas awning can be opened up at night to show a sky full of stars.\" (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. \"I imagined it as a soulful alternative to the hotels in town,\" he says, \"which are luxurious but all more or less in the same high-rise, air-conditioned modern mold.\" Above: In one of five \"stilt\" guest houses\u2014 Tree House South\u2014the sitting room \"has a rustic, richly colored environment,\" 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. \"My 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,\" remarks Stock, who creatively incorporated copious amounts of each into his interiors. (December 2005)\nIzingwe, Trisha Wilson's 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. \"We created a comfortable retreat in the middle of the bush.\" says Wilson. The interior and architectural designer modeled the interiors after a camp in Kenya. Above: Two daybeds dominate a villa's eucalyptus-floored sala. (September 2006)\n\"To 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,\" 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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