Larry Ellison's wholesale reimagining of a former pineapple plantation island gave Sensei Lanai, A Four Seasons Resort an unusual premise: a wellness-focused retreat built on one of the most privately controlled landmasses in the United States, where nearly the entire island belongs to a single owner. Opened in 2021 after an extensive renovation of the former Four Seasons Lodge at Koele, the 96-room resort was conceived around the Sensei wellness philosophy co-founded by Ellison and oncologist David Agus, with interiors handled by the hospitality design studio Champalimaud Design. The architecture draws on a plantation estate vernacular — low-slung cottages with deep-pitched roofs, white-painted millwork, French doors, and window-seat alcoves — set within botanical gardens at 1,600 feet elevation in Lanai's cool upcountry. The guest rooms carry a coastal-plantation palette of bleached linen, grasscloth wall panels, whitewashed plank ceilings, and patterned dhurrie-style rugs, the tonal restraint occasionally punctuated by botanical prints and sculptural ceramic lamps. Common spaces shift register entirely: the great hall pavilion deploys floor-to-ceiling teak-framed glass walls that dissolve into the surrounding palms, while curved white bouclé lounge chairs and communal timber dining tables give the space a mid-century residential ease rather than resort formality. At dusk, the signature restaurant extends over a lily-pad pond on a deep timber deck, the warm redwood framing and lava-rock landscaping placing the building in unmistakable dialogue with its volcanic Hawaiian ground.

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