The area is full of visionaries with an eye for mystical beauty and among them were the Courtaulds, foresaking the grand old style of Europe, to draw upon echoes from the past to recreate in Africa their ancestral home in Britanny.
Sir Stephen and Lady Courtauld came to Africa in the late 1940s on a wing and a prayer and came to love the Imbeza Valley to the extent that they devoted their lives and their artistry to it in their retiring years, ultimately becoming great benefactors to the nation. The National Art Gallery in Harare and the Courtauld Theatre in Mutare are a lasting tribute to their cultural generosity.
La Rochelle was rescued from a declining fate through the association of the National Trust and another couple of visionaries, Simon and Della Herring, who have turned the Courtaulds' home into a genteel country hotel sensitively furnished to match the wondrous gardens that surround it.
Their .batt1e to .revive the 1950s aura of the Courtaulds was not an easy task for literally everything that illustrated their magnificent life style had long gone. Sir Stephen had been in his day a great art collector and he had a secret panel that hid no fewer than 13 Turner paintings. A Persian carpet was said to be the largest in the world.
But, of course, the grand house and its formal gardens remained and such is the ambience that no-one would be surprised if the dowager-like Lady Courtauld, Hungarian-Italian by birth, with a snake tattooed on her ankle, suddenly emerged from the drawing room to greet the guests.
Some may still remember them. The Africans who developed a home craft guild under her care called her a "great lady' and their garden parties were something to behold from another era.
Rich through the family's textile holdings, they found in Africa an escape from the self-indulgent life of European society and discovered a new realm of peace and tranqulity in the valley where they built La Rochelle, dominated by the French-style tower that served as a lookout point over formal gardens that became their private Eden.
While Sir Stephen, who was descended from the Huguenots, steeped himself in renaissance art, Lady Courtauld had her own hideaway in the grounds which she called the Fantasy. They used to drive around in a La Gonda motor vehicle for which the surface was especially adapted and her constant companion, eccentrically draped around her, was a lemur.
Lady Courtauld, who visited Africa as a young girl, once said: "I have a great feeling for this Continent. I like everything about it-the great forests, the wild animals, the sun that burns you". She referred to the emptiness that had trailed her past life and quite openly expressed that she was "sick of Europe". She and her husband developed a second home on the shores of Lake Malawi but always used La Rochelle as their base of operation.
Guests can now stay in the lovely rooms the couple occupied at La Rochelle including the State Room known as The Boudoir. But there is more. In addition to the seven rooms that are en-suite, there is a honeymoon cottage in the garden and four self-catering cottages. This is all topped by a restaurant that offers excellent home-cooked meals, while sitting out on the terrace enjoying tea and brandy snaps within the floral setting is a distinctive tradition.
The botanical gardens managed here by the National Trust has a braille trail for the blind and features perhaps the best collection of orchids in southern Africa. Nicholas Kashiri, who has been looking after the exotic gardens forsome 30 years, calls them his daughters. They include the Peter Horrocks memorial collection of rare phalanopsis.
In former times the Courtaulds used to sail their yacht to exotic parts of the world and collect specimens of trees and plants that found their way to the rich soil of the Imbeza Valley.
Many of the orchids come from South America and Thailand but there are trees and shrubs as well that captivate: Chinese cherry and Pride of India, the Cuban royal palm and Brazilian swamp cypress. And the Ginko Tree from China that lives for thousands of years.
But words do not do justice. The azeleas from India, Japan and China have their own little dell and a nursery specialises in their propagation. These are offset by the camelias, magnolias, ferns and cycads that abound beside a maze of little walkways.
The Courtaulds, who found their haven here, would have been delighted with the faith of the National Trust in bringing their heritage through times of war and drought. Now, says Nicholas, the influence of the hotel has brought the gardens back to life.
* The National Trust also administers four other sites in the Eastern Highlands: World's View, near Troutbeck, Nyanga; the Nyanga Historical Exhibition at the Rhodes Nyanga Hotel; Murahwa's Hill situated in Mutare; and Fort Gomo near Odzani.
