PARADISE FOUND Four Seasons Resort Lāna‘i Written by Caylee Matthews It might be as near as the neighbor’s house, or far away on a remote beach, but in either case, nearly everyone among us has spied a property they covet and thought someday. In the case of Larry Ellison, co-founder and former CEO of Oracle Corporation, that someday moment came while flying over the island of Lāna‘i, and in 2012 he made headlines by purchasing 98% of the 140-square mile island, Hawaii’s sixth-largest by acreage. The reported $300-million sales price was a far cry from the paltry $1.1-million James Drummond Dole paid in 1922 for the same chunk of dirt to create a pineapple plantation, now defunct, that has resulted in Lāna‘i still being known as The Pineapple Island. Enviable as one may be of Ellison’s acquisition, there is an upside: we can all partake in the amenities of the paradisiacal playground he has created on the sloping hillsides that tumble to the shores of Hulopo‘e Bay by checking into the Four Seasons Resort Lāna‘i, a luxurious retreat of unparalleled beauty with a dizzying array of amenities.
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I’d been awake for more than 24 hours by the time I made it to the resort under the cover of darkness; a blur of bright colors and perfumed blooms my only fuzzy recollections of being escorted to my room. Waking just before sunrise, I finally had the chance to survey my surroundings, outfitted in a style I can best describe as tech-meets-tradition, with an abundance of teak, zebra and mahogany woods, and a muted, monochromatic color scheme that felt both contemporary and calming. Using the control panel to open the drapery— high-tech bells and whistles such as a 75” platinum bezel LED television, an in-room iPad Air, and fully integrated and intuitive lighting, temperature, service and privacy controls are a given considering the ownership—I was greeted with a plethora of fragrant gardenia and hibiscus framing my view of an emerald green fairway on the 18-hole Jack Nicklaus-designed Manele Golf Course, which ambles along lava outcroppings on a ridge above the ocean. A few swigs of KonaRed Energy from the complementary refreshment
