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So this is how the 1% lives. For the other 99% of us, peeking into the rarefied world of ultraluxe resorts comes only via PR photos.
Such was the case this week for the grand unveiling of the Four Seasons Hotel Lanai at Koele, a Sensei Retreat, which reopens after a nearly-five-year, $75 million makeover. This is the upper-crust sibling of the Four Seasons Resort Lanai at Manele Bay, both owned by tech billionaire Larry Ellison, which reopened in 2016 after its own $75 million redo.
Manele Bay room rates are a bargain starting at about $950, compared with Koele Sensei’s whopping cost of $2,700 per person per night — which is “all-inclusive” but comes with a three-night minimum. That’s an obscene amount of money, and that makes it harder to square with Ellison’s avowed vision for Lanai.
The Oracle Corp. co-founder owns 98% of Lanai, having bought the nearly 90,000 acres in 2012 for about $300 million. In September, his Pulama Lanai firm said it would be asking the state Land Use Commission to reclassify 200 acres next to Lanai Airport from agricultural to urban use, to develop an industrial park. The $340 million project over 30 years proposes to triple the size of Lanai City for more housing, a university campus, film studios and tennis academy.
Such expansion and economic diversity would double Lanai’s population to about 6,000 by 2030 — and intriguing projects being dangled include a current effort to create a hydroponic farm using an automated greenhouse system to grow produce that would sell in local markets for less than imports.
Clearly, Lanai has come a long way from its century of pineapple farming. Not so clear is its bifurcated future: Will Ellison elevate Lanai with visionary outcomes, or will it contract into a self-important playground for the ultra-rich?
