The Datai Langkawi
A beach resort that refused the beach: nineteen hectares set back on a ridge, three hundred metres up the hill.
The Datai holds about nineteen hectares at the northwestern end of Langkawi, where the road stops. The land is old rainforest at the foot of Gunung Mat Cincang, and the estate sits inside a much larger forest that it does not own. The decision that defines it was taken by Kerry Hill in 1993 and is unusual enough to lead with: he set the resort back from Datai Bay, on a ridge forty metres above the sea and three hundred metres from it, so that guests would be inside the jungle rather than on the sand. Almost nobody with a bay like this one has declined to build on it.
The resort opened in October 1993, designed with Didier Lefort, in dark hardwood and limestone pavilions stepping down through the canopy to the shore. Trained elephants carried materials during construction so that access roads would not be cut. It is counted at a hundred and twenty-one keys: fifty-four rooms, twelve suites, forty rainforest villas and fourteen beach villas, with a five-bedroom estate villa added later. Lefort led a renovation reported between forty-six and sixty million dollars, closing the house from September 2017 to September 2018. The owner is the Malaysian state's investment arm.
Frontage declined. The estate has a famous bay and put its rooms in the trees behind it. The territory being sold here is canopy, not sand, and the walk down is part of the design.
Nineteen hectares inside five hundred. The forest that makes the place is public reserve. What the resort holds is a clearing in it, and the register should not credit the estate with the rainforest around it.
Who it is not for
The Datai is wrong for travellers who want the sea at the door: most rooms are up the hill in the forest and the beach is a walk or a buggy ride. It is wrong for anyone uneasy with wildlife indoors, since langurs, colugos and geckos treat the property as theirs. It is wrong for guests who want a destination outside, because the road ends here. For an Asian estate whose ground runs to the waterline, Amankila steps down a cliff to its own sand.
Sources
- Encyclopaedic record and operator material - opened October 1993 at Datai Bay, Langkawi, designed by Kerry Hill with Didier Lefort; a hundred and twenty-one keys as fifty-four rooms, twelve suites, forty rainforest villas and fourteen beach villas; closed September 2017 to September 2018 for renovation led by Lefort
- Trade coverage - estate of about nineteen hectares, or more than forty-six acres; the main building stands on a ridge forty metres above the sea and three hundred metres from it; the property is owned by the Malaysian government's investment arm
Verification
- Official source
- Not yet checked
- Sources disagree
- the surrounding rainforest is given as five hundred hectares and as seven hundred and fifty; Datai Bay is described as one and a half kilometres and as two miles; the renovation is reported at forty-six and at sixty million dollars.
- Property confirmation
- Pending
- Last verified
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Booking
Private Resorts arranges each stay on request, quoting the rates available for the resort and dates. No benefit should be assumed unless it is confirmed in writing for the individual reservation.
Request a proposalClassified by The Resort Collection House · The Register · Edition 2026 · LHL-E-183
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