Sitting on five beachfront acres along Wailea's Mokapu Beach, where the West Maui Mountains frame the horizon on one side and Molokini crater rises from the channel on the other, the Andaz Maui at Wailea opened in 2013 as one of the more considered attempts to bring a contemporary design sensibility to the Hawaiian resort typology. The architecture, by Dallas-based HKS, arranges low-rise wings — none exceeding five floors — in a crescent configuration that preserves sightlines through the property to the ocean, the dark-toned vertical screen cladding visible in the exterior images giving the glass towers a depth and shadow that softens what might otherwise register as generic resort massing. Interior design by Champalimaud brought a material palette that earns its Pacific address without leaning on tiki cliché: warm koa-toned millwork, travertine-style stone flooring, leather bench ends with a mid-century profile, and pendant shades woven from natural fiber thread through the 297 rooms and suites. The open-air dining pavilion, sheltered beneath an exposed steel pergola frame, frames a pair of large organic bronze sculptures against the channel sunset in a way that feels genuinely considered rather than decorative. Across the terraced pool landscape, frangipani and plumeria push through stone coping, and the curved infinity edge of the main pool reflects the low hotel wings at dusk — a geometry that turns the building into part of the waterscape rather than its backdrop.

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