A double storey post war colonial-style wooden home sits atop a hill amongst sprawling green lawn with a view to Sandakan Bay at the front and the Sulu Sea at the back. This house is known as the Agnes Keith House.
Agnes Newton Keith (1901-1982), the celebrated and acclaimed American author, lived with her husband Henry George Keith in Borneo between 1934 and 1952. Henry was the Conservator of Forests for North Borneo (now known as the State of Sabah). Their original home was bombed in the war and afterwards, this house was reconstructed on the foundations of their first house and in the same style. The Keiths called in Newlands. After the Keiths left in 1952, the house deteriorated.
Today, this restored house and former home is a heritage site of Sandakan and has been open to the public since 2004. Agnes wrote about life in colonial Sandakan, with great humour and candor. Land Below the Wind was her first book. The title of the book has also now become the unofficial motto of Sabah. The Scotsman described it as "A delightful book ... It has abundant humour and a pervading charm Her second book was called Three Came Home and tells of her time in a Japanese Prisoner of War camp. The book became a best seller. While imprisoned, Agnes smuggled writings out in cloth dolls she made for her son George. Two of the dolls are on display in the house. The book tells of the hardships of the internees and POWS. The book was even made into a film in 1950. In 1951 a third book on Borneo was written by Agnes titled White Man Returns.
The Sabah Museum and the Federal Department of Museums and Antiquities have done a wonderful job of restoring the house. Its simple but elegant post war furniture compliments the home. Downstairs, the table is set ready for guests, and the living room is warm and inviting.
There is a great collection of old black and white photographs hanging on the walls. They show the previous occupants and lay out of the house, as well as historical photographs of the local town.
Upstairs, the large bedroom is furnished as it would have been for Agnes and her husband. An excerpt from her book Land Below the Wind hangs in the room and describes in her own words the bedroom “The bedroom is the next place of importance. Like a ship beached by a high tide, our bed stands in the middle of our bedroom floor. All the other pieces of furniture have washed away from it to the outer edges of the room, where they will not intercept any breeze. We made our bed and we certainly like to lie in it. Six-foot-six both ways it is, made of Borneo heavy timber.”
Another quote from the same book hangs in The Bookroom. “There is mental energy in this room, discharged and accumulated from the past, which seems to exhilarate you as you enter it. Not only is it a good place to work in, but it is a good place to stop while the bath runs, or when dressing for dinner or waiting for breakfast, for there is always something unfinished to be gone on with there.” Agnes and Harry were ardent bibliophiles (book collectors). Twenty years after they both died in 1982, their book collection of over 1,000 items was auctioned, many of them one of a kind books.
Two other upstairs rooms have film and information on the family, as well as interesting artifacts, such as the above mentioned cloth dolls. Agnes would have been one very interesting person to know, and thanks to the memoirs she wrote, we can learn a little about this extraordinary woman who made the most of her time in a unfamiliar world.
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