Nairobi city boasts one of the most lavish residential areas in the country. Westlands, Kiambu, Upper Hill Karen, Kitisuru are just but some of the posh estates in Nairobi.
In this article, Nairobileo.co.ke takes a look at the Muthaiga estate, home to some of the wealthiest individuals in the country, including businessman Jimmy Wanjigi, Retired President Mwai Kibaki, among others.
The houses in the estate and cars that come out of it speak opulence. Home of the haves. However, few Kenyans know that the posh estate was once a dairy farm.
Muthaiga was the first farm to supply Nairobi with milk.
The estate first appears in the history books in 1901 John Ainsworth followed the railway to build a new town at mile 327 - this was Nairobi's first name.
He was not a favourite among railway engineers and so when he tried to woo settlers to Nairobi, only Sandbach Baker moved to Nairobi.
Sandbach fenced 5,000 acres of land in 1901. His farm included Muthaiga and he went on to set up a dairy. His only competition was architect J.K. Watson of Donholm Farm, which specialized in butter.
In 1903, Baker’s wife Marie Vera leased 500 acres of the Muthiga land to other settlers. She was unable to make sense of the big farm.
James Archibald Morison, a retired Captain of Grenadier Guards, an infantry regiment of the British Army was the first to come into Muthaiga.
He bought the whole of modern-day Muthaiga from the Bakers at a price of 20 pounds per acre.
Morison subdivided the land into plots, The work was undertaken by an architect firm, Henderson and Ward.
Mr J.C. Coverdale carried out a title survey of the land. He later discovered that Muthaiga was 754 acres and not 717 as the Bakers had thought.
After the completion of the survey, Muthaiga transitioned from a dairy farm to residential estates as the small plots could no longer support dairy farming.
In 1907, Muthaiga grew into a township. It was absorbed into the Nairobi Municipality area in 1928.
At the time, the main street in Muthaiga, Karura Avenue, was known as Morrison Avenue.
Morrison was also a British Conservative Party politician and had in 1910 inherited Basildon Park where he build new cottages and pumping stations to supply it with water.
He was a realtor, and that is why he was able to turn Muthaiga into a posh suburb.
After moving to Nairobi, Morrison established that people hated the government and its officials did not socialise with farmers.
That is why he spared part of his land to build Muthaiga Country Club. But just as the Club was about to re-open, World War I broke out in August 1914 with British East Africa now fighting German East Africa.
Up to this day, a plan for Muthaiga as Henderson and Ward construed it hangs at the Men’s Bar at Muthaiga Country Club. It was at this club, then baptised Moulin Rouge of Africa that settlers made their happy valley escapades.
The plan shows the roads and plots as originally designed.
Ward of Henderson and Ward firm named the area Muthaiga after a Kikuyu herb that stood near his plot.
Elspeth Huxley - a notable colonial writer, remembers in her works how Muthaiga became the first dairy farm in colonial Kenya.
Muthaiga was home to Kenya’s first butter industry. It inspired Lord Delamere, to start a similar project in the Rift Valley at Naivasha.
That is how the Kenya Co-operative Creameries (KCC), the predecessor to New KCC was born.
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