The largest privately owned island in the Southern Hemisphere, Laucala Island was purchased for US$10 million in 2003 by Red Bull billionaire Dietrich Mateschitz as a playground for his paparazzi-shy pals. If seclusion is something you crave too, then the island’s Peninsula Residence is the perfect retreat.
Designed to represent an ‘island on an island’, the luxe mansion’s spacious living areas are all connected by rope bridges and feature enormous floor-to-ceiling French doors to take in the vast stretch of dazzling turquoise South Pacific ocean and tropical reef that surround Laucala.
With a natural pool carved into the rock and its own stretch of pristine white beachfront, guests would be forgiven for never leaving to explore what other treasures the location has to offer.
However, the temptation lies in the form of restaurants catered by the local tropical fruit, vegetable and Wagyu beef farm; spa treatments using oils from the retreat’s flower gardens and coconut groves; an 18-hole golf course; various boats, kayaks and jet skis, oh – and a submarine.
Yes, ‘Laucala’ must definitely be Fijian for ‘over-the-top luxe’.
Peninsula Residence, $POA. Book at www.laucala.com
