Four Seasons Resort Lanai
Thirty-six acres of hotel on an island of ninety thousand that one man owns, above a public bay.
The resort holds about thirty-six acres of cliff and garden above Hulopoe Bay on the south coast of Lanai. By the standards of this register that is a modest holding, and it is not the interesting number. The island around it runs to some ninety thousand acres, of which roughly ninety-eight per cent was bought by Larry Ellison in 2012 from Castle and Cooke: about eighty-seven thousand acres including both resorts, the water company, the transport company, residential and commercial property. The state holds the remaining two per cent, being the school, the hospital and certain roads. Three thousand people live here.
The hotel opened in 1991 as the Manele Bay Hotel, came under Four Seasons management in 2005 and reopened in February 2016 after a renovation reported at four hundred and fifty million dollars. Accommodation is published at two hundred and thirteen, split as a hundred and sixty-eight rooms and forty-five suites, and elsewhere at two hundred and seventeen and two hundred and thirty-six. The Manele golf course was laid out by Jack Nicklaus along the cliffs. Hulopoe Bay below is a marine life conservation district and its beach is public.
The estate and the estate around it. Thirty-six acres belong to the hotel; the island belongs to the hotel's owner. Those are different facts and the register keeps them apart rather than letting the second flatter the first.
Ownership is not emptiness. Lanai has a town, a school and three thousand residents who are not part of anybody's property. What the guest gets is a quiet island, not a private one.
Who it is not for
Four Seasons Lanai is wrong for travellers who want a private beach: Hulopoe is a public conservation bay used by residents. It is wrong for anyone who imagines an empty island, since Lanai is inhabited and the town is a short drive. It is wrong for guests uneasy with the arrangement itself, which is one owner holding almost all of a place where other people live. For an island whose whole surface belongs to its guests' hosts, Jumby Bay is the comparison.
Sources
- Trade and encyclopaedic record - resort of about thirty-six acres above Hulopoe Bay; opened 1991 as the Manele Bay Hotel, under Four Seasons management from October 2005, reopened February 2016 after a renovation reported at four hundred and fifty million dollars
- Sale coverage, 2012 - Larry Ellison acquired about ninety-eight per cent of Lanai from Castle and Cooke, some eighty-seven to eighty-eight thousand of the island's ninety thousand acres, including both resorts and the water and transport companies; the State of Hawaii retains the remainder
- The resort's own acreage rests on a single source, and the public status of Hulopoe Beach should be confirmed with the property before publication.
Verification
- Official source
- Not yet checked
- Sources disagree
- accommodation is published as two hundred and thirteen, two hundred and seventeen and two hundred and thirty-six; the sale price is reported between three hundred and six hundred million dollars.
- Property confirmation
- Pending
- Last verified
- —
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-352
Report a correction ·
How this is verified