“God made the world round so we would never be able to see too far down the road.” Karen Blixen, author Out of Africa. Out of Africa is a film produced and directed by Sydney Pollack in 1985, starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford. At the age of twenty-five, I saw the movie for the first time and was carried away by the evolution of Streep’s character, Karen Blixen, in combination with the evolution of the house she purchased in the British Colonial Colony of Kenya, East Africa, circa 1915. As hopeful romantic, Karen Blixen, also known as, Karen Christian Dinesen of Denmark was able to harness her passion for life, and the living of the same. As a women and the creative person that I am, I was able to immediately identify with the character, and the real-life person, who defined Karen Blixen. The journey that was begun at that point in time has been marked in time by more than one-half of my life to date. In short, I had the opportunity (after fifteen years of studying the film and living life) to translate the evolution of Blixen’s character and the house, which evolved along with her on the side of Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The “Out of Africa House” featured in the January 2004 issue of The Mississippi Magazine, was my interpretation of that evolution. With the help of Nichols and Comito, custom home builders, and Joni Bader of Joni Bader Interiors, all of Colorado Springs, Colorado, in combination with several architects and more craftsmen than I could begin to count, my dream of Blixen’s house became a reality. This page, Sarah Beaugez Designs, will become my place to record the evolutionary process that not only records the process of that house becoming a reality, but my own journey to become who I am today. I hope that you will follow that same recording. If you, as the reader, can identify with any part of that journey, I would love to hear from you. Also, if you would if you like a consultation on the design of your own home, or how to define the space that you call your own, please contact me. And, thank you for coming along for a very creative ride.
