Floating roughly four kilometres off the coast of Doha on a crescent-shaped private island in the Persian Gulf, the overwater villa concept — long the preserve of the Maldives and Bora Bora — found an unlikely new address when Banana Island Resort Doha by Anantara opened in 2015. The property transplants the Polynesian-inflected vocabulary of thatched-roof water bungalows into the Gulf, stringing teak-clad pavilions along timber boardwalks above shallow turquoise water, their steeply pitched thatch roofs visible against Doha's skyline at dusk. The 141 rooms and villas divide between beachfront and overwater accommodation, the latter distinguished by fold-back glass walls that dissolve the boundary between cedar-lined interiors and private sun decks furnished with rattan daybeds and glass-floored panels revealing the sea below. Inside the villas, horizontal timber cladding wraps every wall surface, warm against white linen and upholstered rattan seating in sand and grey tones, with arabesque-fretwork bed frames introducing a quiet regional register. The resort's main restaurant takes a more theatrical approach — dark stained timber columns carry an exposed chevron-beam ceiling above herringbone parquet floors, with cylindrical aquarium columns flanking a gilded sunburst wall installation that pushes the space toward a kind of tropical Arabesque fusion. The lagoon pool, its shoreline edge formed from pale rendered masonry and scattered boulders, blends seamlessly into the natural beach beyond, palm trees and thatched parasols extending toward the overwater villas in the middle distance.

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