The road leading to Tanga Heights in Kilimani, Nairobi, is lined with trees and shrubs. This seems to be the norm in this neighbourhood that is barely a 20-minute drive from the Central Business District (CBD).
As you enter the gate, the first thing you notice is that the two blocks that make up the development are facing away from the main gate.
As you get to the parking lot in front of the blocks, it becomes clear why this is so.
The buildings face a valley full of trees, with scattered low populated residential blocks and a narrow road, Kingara Road, peering from it.
This is more appealing than if it were the other way round.
Entry to the first unit on the ground floor of the first block is by a gently slanting slope in place of stairs, showing consideration to persons with disability. The rest of the floors are served by two elevators in the middle section of the building with two apartments on each floor of the nine-floor blocks.
Though not currently functioning until the development is complete, the elevators seemingly are small-sized, judging by the small doors.
This could be a potential headache, especially when transporting heavy and large items from the ground floor to ninth floor.
Natural Light
The first unit on the ground floor, which doubles up as the showroom, is not furnished.
The living room, with a stretched out balcony separated by a glass door, provides plenty of natural light into the room.
The spacious living room also stretches out to the kitchen to give a simple neat open floor plan.
On the left wall of the living room is an entrance to a toilet. The toilet farther on the long narrow hallway ensures soundproofing from the living room to avoid embarrassing situations when entertaining guests.
The kitchen is fitted with granite table tops and a five-burner gas cooker with a metal smoke hood.
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There is a special attention to the fittings of the units, starting with the light switch to the kitchen fittings, which include taps and cabinet handles. Besides being attractive, they are strong and functionally convenient.
The kitchen is open and rectangular in shape, with cabinets on top and bottom of the working spaces.
It is also spacious enough to allow for freedom of movement of several people within the several work spaces.
A fitted refrigerator, which comes with a fitted burner in these kinds of kitchens, is, however, ostensibly missing in this unit.
Behind the kitchen is a laundry room with ample space and storage. There is also a spacious en suite guest room.
Between the living room and kitchen is a hallway leading to the bedrooms. Mirrors and sink, which are normally on hallways of many apartment units, are missing as all the bedrooms are en suite.
Bedroom
The first bedroom is impressive, with a good view of the valley. The second bedroom with a somewhat similar view is the master bedroom.
Though it has its own balcony, the extra spacious master bedroom is partially blocked from the valley view as the wall of the next block is also a partial blockade view.
The bathrooms are fitted with a triangular bathtub, with the option of a glass-walled shower in the same room as well as the sitting toilet spread on the grey tiled floor.
The last bedroom is fairly-sized. The two bedrooms, the master and the third bedroom, are separated by their respective bathrooms and spacious slide closets, thereby minimising any form of noise from either bedrooms.
The rest of the units are fairly the same as this one with similar floor plan and design expect that the left section units have no guest rooms and their master bedrooms have a clear view of the valley.
Penthouse
The penthouse, however, left me with mixed feelings. Besides not having a different floor plan design as the rest of the units, it does not have an out-of-the-box design when it comes to other sections of the house.
The enormously huge master bedroom could have done with a bigger walk-in bathroom away from the small triangular bathtub, which is similar to the ones on the smaller units downstairs.
The walk-in closet could have also been bigger with a more impressive wardrobe system.
The penthouse goes for about Sh43 million. The rest of the units are on sale for between Sh23 million and Sh30 million, depending on floor - the higher the floor, the higher the cost.
Rent is from Sh150,000 per month. Service charge for the units currently stands at Sh10,000.
Tanga Heights enjoys social amenities like the Junction Mall, several upmarket schools, including Makini School and Braeburn.