Danish author Karen Blixen (who confusingly wrote under the nom-de-plume of Isak Dinesen) was the author of ‘Out of Africa’, which inspired the film of the same name. The film’s costume designer, Milena Canonero, was inspired by snapshots of Blixen in gauzy dresses and spirited jackets. For the movie she dressed Meryl Streep in the tea-dipped linens of the period. At home in Denmark, Blixen evolved a natural, unpretentious, and very international décor. This story begins in Arles, Provence, of all places. Several years ago I was in Arles, at the legendary Grand Hotel Nord-Pinus hotel in the center of town. It’s a chic and very insider hotel dating from the thirties, and now owned and maintained superbly by Ann Igue, a photography collector and connoisseur. The hotel has long been associated with Jean Cocteau, Lucien Clergue, Spanish bullfighters, as well as Picasso and Ernest Hemingway and their coteries. Karen Blixen photographed in Copenhagen, 1962, by Peter Beard. Karen Blixen in Nyack-on-Hudson, in 1959, with Arthur Miller, Marilyn Monroe, and Carson McCullers. The décor of the lobby and sitting room are very Camargue-meets-Provence—but it was the large-scale black and white photos on the walls that grabbed my attention. “I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills. The Equator runs across these highlands, a hundred miles to the North, and the farm lay at an altitude of over six thousand feet. In the day-time you felt that you had got high up, near the sun, but the early mornings and evenings were limpid and restful, and the nights ere cold.’’ Opening paragraph of ‘Out of Africa’ by Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen) Looming above the leather club chairs and forged-iron tables was a collection of new works by Peter Beard, long associated with Africa. Portrait of Karen Blixen taken in 1922 on her African farm. She is holding lilies from her garden. Photo: Thomas Dinesen. From the Karen Blixen Museum, Rungsted, Denmark. Karen Blixen and her brother Thomas Dinesen in Africa, 1922. Two images in particular stopped me in my tracks. In all their glory on the white plaster walls were a profile and a three-quarter portrait of Karen Blixen, the great novelist and memoirist, who used the nom de plume, Isak Dinesen. The grace, elegant and nobility of her whole being were captured in Peter Beard’s sensitive and revealing works. Cut forward a few months: I am in Copenhagen and heading north, with a Danish friend, up the coast to Rungsted to visit the Karen Blixen Museet (museum). It is in her former residence. The Ewald room at the Karen Blixen Museum, photographed by Ole Woldbye in 1991. The drawing room of Karen Blixen's house in Rungsted, now the Karen Blixen Museum, photo Niels Harving, 2002. Blixen was most famous for her novel, ‘Out of Africa’ and received international acclaim in her long life-time. She died in 1962. (It is said that she died of the lingering effects of syphilis, which she had contracted from her husband, Baron Bror von Blixen-Finecke, in 1917. Insiders, however, suggest that her ill-health and suffering (which she never concealed) were in fact caused by metal poisoning from heavy doses of mercury prescribed in those days to treat the disease--or perhaps arsenic used in Africa. This aspect of her glamorous life is a counterpoint to the nobility and creativity of her life in Africa and in Denmark.) Karen Blixen in a ballgown, 1934, photo Reimert Kehlet. Karen Blixen in an elegant hat, photographed by Cecile Beaton 1959. Royal Library Copenhagen. “At the Samburu station on the line, I got out of the train while the engine was taking in water, and walking with Farah to the platform. From there, to the South-West, I saw the Ngong Hills. The noble wave of the mountain rose above the surrounding flat land, all air-blue. But it was so far away that the four peaks looked trifling, hardly distinguishable, and different from the way they looked from the farm. The outline of the mountain was slowly smooth and leveled out by the hand of distance.” Final words as Isak Dinesen returned to Denmark, after a life of drama and beauty, love and tragedy, in Africa. ‘Out of Africa’ was originally published by Random House, New York, in 1937. It is available in countless editions. The residence with its accompanying gardens and meadows, are now part of a preserve, where visitors can wander in tranquility with views of the sea. The interiors of the residence are always filled with seasonal flowers from the cutting garden hidden among the trees. The rooms are maintained precisely as they were when Blixen lived there, complete with her books, a lifetime collection of African memorabilia, brass-studded chests, delicate antique chairs and her fragile lace curtains. My friend and I were the only visitors on that day, so spent time in each room as if we were visiting an old friend. Later we walked through the preserve. Blixen is buried beneath a handsome and sheltering beech tree. Her grave at Rungstedlund is a simple granite marker. My friend and I left white roses there in tribute to the great author and pioneer. Karen Blixen and flowers from her garden, in the living room of her house, photographed by Steen Eiler Rasmussen, 1960. "I have had the great good luck in life that when I sleep, I dream, and my dreams are always beautiful. The nightmare, with its squint-eyed combination of claustrophobia and horror vacui, I know from other people's accounts only, and mostly, for the last twenty years, from books and theatre. The gift of dreaming runs in my family, it is highly valued by all of use and makes us feel that we have been favored among other human beings. An old aunt of mine asked to have written on her tombstone: "She saw many a hard day, but her nights were sweet." From 'Shadows on the Grass' by Isak Dinesen (nom de plume of Karen Blixen) her memoirs of life in Africa, first published in 1960. Blixen had returned to Copenhagen and her glittering life there--and thought only of her life, left behind in Africa.