Mugie House: stay on a luxury Kenyan ranch

Mugie House is a traditional Kenyan ranch built by a Swiss family in the late 1990s, complete with modern luxuries like a spa and infinity pool.  Set on the 50,000-acre Mugie Conservancy, the property features a main farm house where guests dine, as well as private stone cottages scattered around the ranch. All the rooms have a high-end, cosy feel with roaring fireplaces and copper baths, not to mention sweeping views of the nearby waterhole all the way across the Laikipia Plateau to Mount Kenya.

We’re a low-impact ranch and pride ourselves on supporting the local Pokot people with community grazing programmes and funding for schools and health clinics. Guests staying at Governors’ Mugie have the opportunity to visit the Pokot at a nearby village and learn about the traditions and customs of this colourful tribe who hail from the districts of West Pokot and Baringo (donation fee required). You can also get an insight into life on a traditional ranch; we encourage you to visit the cattle enclosures, talk to our herdsmen and get involved with activities like the weekly spray race to get rid of cattle ticks. You can visit our vegetable gardens too, where we grow delicious organic produce. Everything is farm-to-fork at Mugie and we have an eclectic menu – two of our chefs are Italian-Kenyan and make the most phenomenal pasta.

Since we’re on a private conservancy, you get the chance to enjoy nature on foot, which is great if you’ve just been cooped up on game drives in national parks. After breakfast, perhaps you’ll go for a round of golf on the nearby nine-hole course, which also has its own running track, then head to the Mugie dam for a picnic lunch and a jug of Pimms. The dam is home to hippos, lots of colourful birdlife and is a popular swimming spot for elephants. Maybe you’ll spend the rest of the afternoon by the pool or at the spa, or if you are feeling more active you may wish to canoe on the Mugie Dam, which offers a thrilling opportunity to view wildlife from the water.

Mugie Conservancy manages to strike a balance between the community, wildlife conservation and tourism. We proudly protect ecosystems and migration corridors for native wildlife while allowing space for herdsmen to graze their cattle. So, on game drives you’ll likely spot rare and endangered species like the Jackson’s hartebeest, Grevy’s zebra and reticulated giraffe, as well as plenty of big cats and elephants. On the ranch, you can even meet Tala, our orphaned giraffe, and the friendly bloodhounds who work in our anti-poaching unit.