Robert Louis Stevenson Museum, Vailima
Tusitala’s last home – the plantation villa where the Teller of Tales lived, wrote, and died, beneath the mountain grave Samoans dug for him by hand.
At a glance
- Type
- Historic house museum
- Period
- 1890-1894
- Style
- Pacific colonial villa
- Location
- Vailima, Apia, Samoa
- Coordinates
- -13.8612, -171.7775
- Resident
- Robert Louis Stevenson (Tusitala)
Overview
Vailima – Five Waters – is the airy red-roofed villa Robert Louis Stevenson built beneath Mount Vaea when, dying of consumption and famous across the world for Treasure Island and Jekyll and Hyde, he chose Samoa as his final harbour. Here he wrote his late masterpieces, hosted chiefs, and earned the name Tusitala – Teller of Tales – dying suddenly in 1894 at 44.
History
Stevenson championed Samoan dignity during the powers’ colonial scramble; chiefs he had defended cut the Road of the Loving Heart to his door in gratitude. At his death they carried him up Mount Vaea and dug his grave overnight – the tomb bears his requiem: Home is the sailor, home from sea. The house served German, New Zealand, and Samoan heads of state before its restoration as the Stevenson Museum in 1994.
Architecture and Design
The two-storey timber villa with deep verandahs, the only fireplace in Samoa (homesick symbolism – it was never lit), and the great hall of Californian redwood preserve the writer’s library, sickroom, and the smoking room of famous conversations. The gardens of the Five Waters descend in tropical lawns.
Cultural significance
Vailima is the Pacific’s great literary shrine and a monument of mutual adoption between a European writer and a Polynesian nation; the climb to the mountain tomb is a pilgrimage for readers worldwide, and Samoa’s head-of-state residence next door keeps the name in national life.
Visiting today
The museum opens weekdays and Saturday mornings with guided tours; the Mount Vaea trail to the grave takes an hour return – go early for the view over Apia to the reef.
Getting there
Vailima lies 4 km inland from Apia on the Cross Island Road; taxis and the museum’s signage make it the easiest excursion from the capital.
Sources and resources
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