Mischief - a famous eccentric who lived in a huge Tuscan Villa on Lake Naivasha - Sirocco House - He had been placed under house arrest and shortly before the trial his house had been surrounded by police armed with shotguns, on a tip that Rocco was planning to escape by hot air balloon. (He was later interned in S. Africa)

Carnelley - Naivasha - …. The Roccos who built Dominio di Doriano. She, Giselle, was a famous artist and sculptress with exhibitions in the Paris Louvre. Mario was very dashing, always kissed my mother's hand and wore powerful after shave cologne. He was a pilot in WW1 and was to become 'Governor' if the Italians had won the war in Abyssinia and Kenya. He always said to my father "It's alright Steve, I'll look after you." He always wore extremely smart, pale blue Italian Air Force uniform. On the day the Italians entered the war he was stopped at the turn-off to Eburru by an ox-wagon across the road, manned by some of his old Naivasha acquaintances and sent off to South Africa as a POW.
http://elephantwatchportfolio.com/who-we-are/our-origins/ Mario Rocco and Giselle Bunau-Varilla, arrived from Italy and France in 1928 to hunt elephants in what was then the Belgian Congo. They walked for a year, moving camp whenever they felt the urge to explore another part of the country. When Giselle fell pregnant with their first child, Doriano, the couple set off on foot from what is now Rwanda towards Lake Victoria with sixty porters shouldering their life’s possessions. They piled their boxes onto a steamboat, crossed the lake and took a carriage on the Lunatic Express across Kenya, finally ending their journey in Naivasha, where they bought a farm on the lake’s northern shoreline.

There they built Sirocco House, a renowned piece of French Art Deco architecture, where their daughters Mirella and Oria were born. Their idyllic childhood, and the stories the family told on their return to Paris, are said to have inspired Giselle’s cousin, Jean de Brunhoff, to pen his famous children’s books on Babar the Elephant King. Oria’s sister, Mirella Ricciardi, is a celebrated photographer who has published several books on Africa. A detailed history of Mario and Giselle can be read in an excerpt from her latest book, African Visions, and her photographs are collector’s pieces. Like hundreds of thousands of children all over the world, Doriano, Mirella and Oria were brought up on the Babar books, as were their children and their grandchildren today.

Oria met Iain Douglas-Hamilton while he was in Tanzania studying elephants for his doctorate thesis in Oxford. Iain and Oria worked together on a series of books about elephant behaviour that have become cornerstones of our understanding of these great beasts. Among the Elephants is an account of their time spent studying elephants in Manyara, Tanzania, and Battle for the Elephants documents their difficult years persuading the world that the ivory trade was out of control. Both have won many awards. A charming children’s book by Oria, The Elephant Family Book, tells the story of rare elephant twins born in Manyara during their study.