PBS - Air Pacific: The Ultra-Exclusive Laucala Island

Air Pacific: The Ultra-Exclusive Laucala Island
August

"Hotteliers of the world: The bar has been raised," wrote robb report's Jennifer Hall in the dispatch from the ultra-exclusive Luacala Island in northern Fiji in May.

As an associate editor with the world’s definitive authority on connoisseurship for ultra-affluent consumers, Hall is well placed to make such a call.

“Within the past 18 months, I’ve been to Courchevel, France; Verbier, Switzerland; St. Bart’s, the Bahamas (twice); Palm Beach, Florida; and Chile’s Atacama Desert, to name a few,” she continued. “I was speechless on my tour today.”

Laucala’s scale certainly leaves visitors at a loss for words. Open since December 2008, the 25- villa resort is set on a nearly 3000-acre private island, a former coconut plantation owned by the late American media mogul Malcom Forbes, who entertained Elizabeth Taylor among other jetset here in his heyday.

In 2003, the reclusive Austrian billionaire Dietrich Mateschitz, head of the Red Bull energy drink company, acquired the island for a reported US$10 million and set about transforming it into his utopian ideal.

“Laucala is a little different to what you might expect of a resort,” reads the official press handbook. “Our integral philosophy encompasses the whole island, growing our own livestock and vegetables, caring for our own poultry and hand-making all our own guest products, using the island’s natural resources.”

The resort covers only 15 percent of the entire island, the rest is untouched. Yet even the developed areas are unobtrusive: chic tribal-style structures based on traditional Fijian architecture and made with local timber, thatch and stone blend seamlessly with the natural environment.

Each of Laucala’s 25 spacious villas is a destination unto itself, built in spectacular surroundings. Set amidst tall palms in the old copra estate, Plantation Residences have private beaches and open sea views; Seagrass Residences are located within a tropical jungle overlooking a magnificent turquoise bay while Plateau Residences offer spectacular cliff top views of neighbouring islands.

There are also three one-of-a-kind residences. The lone, sprawling Overwater Residence is built out over the sea while Peninsula Residence, also oversized, is nestled into the headland with uninterrupted ocean views. The ultimate villa is the owner’s secluded Hilltop Residence, available to guests when he’s not on the island. A resort within itself, it boasts a main residence and two guest villas at the highest point of Laucala with sweeping 360-degree views over the entire island and its surrounding turquoise waters.

Compared to normal resort standards, even Laucala’s one-room villas are anything but small as Hall herself found out while staying in a Plantation Residence in May.

Sekola, one of the island’s smallest accommodations, has a living room and a bar, a full-size pool, an outdoor private dining area and couch, a bedroom with another living room, a residential-size closet and dressing area, two bathrooms (one outdoors, one indoors), three showers, a private beach, and a yoga pavilion,” she wrote.

No less impressive are Laucala’s extravagant amenities which includes four restaurants, a secluded hill top spa, an 18-hole championship golf course, equestrian center, a fleet of boats and what’s believed to be the largest swimming pool in the Southern Hemisphere.

Situated at the heart of the resort, the sprawling manmade lagoon pool comes complete with a glass-cube lap pool and little islands for relaxation and sunbathing.

Laucala’s four restaurants, each in a special location with its own feel and separate menu, serve innovative cuisine made with fresh island-grown produce. Located in a reconstructed original colonial-style dwelling, The Plantation House Restaurant is Laucala’s fine dining destination where guests can take in the ambience of a bygone era with a cigar in hand and at cocktail hour visit walk-in cellars filled with a variety of old and new world wines. Degustation menus along with corresponding wines and spirit selections are on offer here.

Overlooking the sea grass bay, the cliff-top Rock Lounge with its chilled-out, open-air ambience and uninterrupted views of the ocean serves tropical cocktails and assiette-style finger-food.

Boasting amphitheater ocean views towards the neighbouring Qamea and Matagi Islands, the Seagrass Lounge and Restaurant has an elegant look with a contemporary Asian feel. It serves Teppanyaki grill and Asian-inspired Laucala cuisine.

The Beach Bar, at the edge of the lagoon pool bordering the beach, offers a more casual dining experience where guests enjoy barefoot barbeque of fresh catch grilled to order while taking in the sunset.

For some indulgent pampering, guests head to the island’s hilltop spa, set amidst a rainforest with ocean views. Treatments are based on traditional South Pacific rituals combined with modern techniques: two and four hand massages, Fijian hot and cold river stone therapy, body wraps, island volcanic scrubs and mineral crystal therapy to name just a few. In keeping with Laucala’s ethos to utilise the island’s natural resources, all spa products are handmade on site in a dedicated kitchen using fresh tropical flowers, herbs, spices and fruit grown in the spa garden along with virgin nut oil cold-pressed from coconuts gathered on the island.

For the actively-inclined, a host of activities are on offer on Laucala. Scotsman David McClay Kidd’s 18-hole championship golf course is set in the old copra plantation, where guests can take lessons from resident Kiwi golf pro Tony Christie. The island’s lush tropical inland can be explored in a variety of ways: on an early morning or afternoon hike, a mountain bike tour or on horseback. Dedicated instructors give one-on-one yoga and tennis lessons. Laucala’s turquoise waters offer some of the best snorkelling, diving and year-around game fishing in the world. There’s also a dedicated Kids Club for children up to 14 years old as well as in-villa babysitting and childcare services.

Since opening late last year, Laucala has already received a number of high profile international guests although it will not say who they are. In an era where celebrity namedropping lends immediate cachet, the island, like its reclusive owner, is characteristically discreet. For Laucala’s clientele, the millionaires and billionaires who arrive by private jet on the island’s airstrip, the third largest in Fiji, privacy may well be the ultimate luxury.

By Rajan Sami
Source: Air Pacific Inflight Magazine

Client Reference