Doris Duke's Shangri La

Hubby and I made Hawaii Bucket Lists. There are few things that don't match up, and we are endeavoring separately. He had no desire to see Doris Duke's Shangri La estate. I had no desire to....never mind that post is coming soon! Instead I toured the estate with friends.



Even if you don't know about Doris Duke, you probably have heard about her family's money. Duke University is named for Doris Duke's daddy. He was a tobacco and energy tycoon, and died when she was just 12 years old. Half of his money went to the university. He left her the other half, the equivalent of a billion dollars. Well, back in the day she was a super famous heiress. This was 1925, and she had personal body guards to prevent her from being kidnapped for ransom.


In her early 20s she married, and honeymooned around the world for a year. Can you imagine....a year long honeymoon? She traveled mostly throughout the Islamic world, and made an extended stay in Hawaii. She purchased five acres of property on the back side of Diamond Head, the large volcanic crater on our island, right on the Pacific Ocean. She built a home from the ground up. It is full of Islamic art from her travels all around the world, and built in Islamic architecture.


The only way to get to Shangri La is to take the private tour through the Honolulu Academy of Arts. We arrived at the HAA, and were clipped with plastic numbers. We watched the required video in a building that houses some of her Islamic collection. Afterward, the docent handed us another official sticker to wear before boarding the official shuttle to Shangri La. It was all very OFFICIAL. We pulled into her unimpressive circular driveway and met our guide at the estate. Boy was the facade of the house deceptive. We had no idea what awaited us inside the front door!

We couldn't see Shangri La from the road. Even though she was one of the wealthiest women in America, she didn't try and impress people with her wealth. The property was really green with mature vegetation providing her total privacy from all angles. This is just the trunk of a huge banyan tree in her circular driveway.
The rest of the tree is elephantine and sprawling.

All over her plain walls, both inside and out, Doris mounted tiles from the Islamic world. She collected tiles from existing buildings. These tiles are several hundred years old, and tell stories in pictures. Her wall mosaics became her art.Just like the Islamic veiled culture with its privacy and beauty is what she recreated at Shangri La. The guide tugged on the wooden door and our tour group just ooohed and ahhhed. The home is totally deceptive. We had no idea such a large garden was hidden away.
This is called a Mughal garden. She visited many of these gardens in Kashmir, Pakistan, and India. We couldn't walk down the steps because it had just rained and the marble was slick. The guide explained the importance of geometry and balanced and reflective elements in Mughal gardens. Geometric patterns are within the long red brick pathways, the garden planters, and even in the waterfall that riffles down the marble steps.

We left the Mughal garden and entered her home, where no photography was allowed. You need to check out the tour on the link above, though, and you can see all the beauties I couldn't photograph. Wooo-wee I had never seen anything like this place. The dining room was done up just like the inside of a circus tent, from the floor to the tented ceiling! Yes, the ceiling looked just like an Arabian circus tent! Just off of the living room is a lanai that faces the Pacific Ocean. Mr. Random took my picture. What a nice shadow I am!
This is another view from the outside lanai. That land mass is Diamond Head. See the little pink house on the right? She called that little house here playroom. That was her guest house that was over 2,000 square feet, and modeled on an Iranian pavilion. This was an off limits area to us. Inside are collections of Iranian artifacts over 200 years old. She felt very safe in Hawaii and had no bodyguards. She went swimming with "the children" in her saltwater pool every day. "The children" were her TWENTY dogs.
I took another long shot of the back yard. Just like in her Mughal garden, the pool area was planned with reflection, geometric patterns, and water elements.
These are more of her Middle Eastern tiles mounted on the outside walls.Under this back lanai you see the tall glass windows from her living room. The walls disappear completely into a basement area. The windows are on elevator pulleys that drop them twenty feet into the ground. The archway on the left leads to a central courtyard. Her entire house is centered around this courtyard, on all four sides. The middle of her house is completely an open air square with seating all around.


Hidden cameras were all over the estate, but some weren't so hidden to me!
The house only had two bedrooms, but was 14,000 square feet inside.
A stairway led from her gardens to the balcony with awesome views.

We were not allowed to take photography past this gate. But if you look inside and gauge the ceiling you get the sense of the grandeur of the estate. Remember, this was a four sided courtyard. The chandelier lights were all on pulleys in the courtyard. Doris didn't want anyone falling when changing a light bulb. She even had the ceilings imported and installed in her home.
Our hour and a half tour came to an end. I learned so much about Islamic art and about Doris Duke, the young heiress who was once known as the Million Dollar Baby. She holds the largest collection of Islamic art in the country. In her will she left Shangri La to the Honolulu Academy of Arts. It recently opened in 2002 as a private tour offered by the museum.

After all this ogling, we were hungry! We grabbed some lunch along the pier downtown at a new restaurant. None of us had been there.
And since none of us had been there, I settled on trying something brand new. I ordered ahi belly. Now, for those of you that don't know, ahi is the Hawaiian word for tuna. But this is not like chicken of the sea. Nooooo. This is much fancier. I have had ahi steaks, just never ahi belly. So one of my friends totally rolled her eyes at me when I clarified that it wasn't tripe. Well, you know I wanted to know before it was sitting in front of me! Nooo it was just a different cut of ahi. I started out by asking the waitress what was most popular. That is my secret trick when I can't figure out what to order. I learned that one from Hubby. So it is really not that secret of a trick. She said all the big men ordered ahi belly. Well, bring it on, I thought!It was so delish I saved a little bit to give Hubby a try. He loved it, too!!!!