Description
Agnes Keithe House in Sandakan, Sabah is named for the American author who is best known for her biographical accounts of when she live in Borneo before, during and after the Second World War.
Agnes first occupied what was then a government house shortly upon her arrival in Sandakan in 1934 and lived there with her husband Hendry G. Keith (known as Harry Keith) until they were interned in 1942 during WWII.
After the war they returned to Sandakan and a destroyed house, but 1946 & 1947 they rebuilt it on the original footprint of the old house, and according to a similar style. Agnes Keith House was then named Newlands and remained their home until they left Borneo in 1952.
In the nearly 50 years that followed, Agnes Keith House gradually deteriorated until there was only a shell left. In 2001, Sabah Museums in collaboration with the Federal Department of Museums and Antiquities, started to restore Agnes Keith House to its former glory.
Since its opening in 2004, the Agnes Keith House Museum, now a heritage house, has been a popular tourist attraction, providing interesting insights into life in British North Borneo.
Reproduction colonial furnishings and antiques decorate the house, and a gallery on the 1st floor pictures the remarkable woman, her family and her books.
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