The circular entrance pavilion at Tufu Bay — a deep-eaved canopy of red-stained timber battens hovering over a perfectly round reflection pool, a curtain of water threads descending from its rim like a drawn veil — announces the design intention of Capella Sanya before a single room is seen. Opened in 2012 on Hainan Island's southern coast, the resort was conceived as a dialogue between classical Chinese architectural grammar and the easy horizontality of a tropical beach property, set within a landscape of coconut palms and direct South China Sea frontage. The interiors move between registers with some confidence: guest rooms take a restrained contemporary line, with ink-wash paintings mounted above upholstered headboards, walnut-framed lounge seating, floor-to-ceiling glazing drawing the palm canopy and ocean into the room, and bathrooms glimpsed through brass-framed doorways lined with dark marble. Elsewhere the property shifts toward richer territory — a lounge space furnished with apothecary-style timber cabinetry, a coffered black ceiling, lacquered red drapery panels, and a branched chandelier combining candlelight fittings with ceramic drops, the whole carrying the atmosphere of a Shanghainese private club circa 1930. The large resort pool, photographed from above, reveals traditional hip-roofed pavilions sitting among dense planting at its northern edge, grounding the sprawling site in a specifically Chinese spatial sensibility that keeps the property from reading as simply another Southeast Asian beach resort.

No travel notes provided yet.

Capella Tufu Bay, Hainan offers 190 exquisitely-designed rooms, suites and villas amid lush gardens, overlooking the South China Sea. Inspired by the beautiful elements of nature and mysterious maritime silk road trade history, and the legends of Blessed Bay (Tufu Bay in Chinese).