With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/813780
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: COURTESY OF FOUR SEASONS RESORT LANAI; PETER VITALE; BARBARA KRAFT MAY 2017 BCBUSINESS 71 TRAVEL Perfect Vision Oracle founder Larry Ellison is transforming the Hawaiian island of Lanai into an eco-paradise for visitors and residents alike by Amanda Ross There's perhaps no bigger status buy than the private island. Thanks to Justin Trudeau's Christmas vacation, we now all know about the Aga Khan's Bahamian getaway, and Richard Bran- son has long used his Necker Island as an advertisement for the good life. But iconoclastic billionaire Larry Ellison, founder of U.S. software giant Oracle Corp., is a little different. His purchase of 98 per cent of Lanai in 2012 was notable not just for its reported price tag (more than US$300 million), but for its goal: turning the sixth-biggest Hawaiian island into a large-scale eco-experiment to improve the lives of its inhabitants and visitors alike. In short, to create the greenest and the most luxurious desti- nation in the world. This isn't the first time Lanai has seen dreamers. King Kamehameha conquered it and used its bays as prized fishing spots. He gave way to James Dole, who in 1922 transformed the island into the world's largest pineapple plantation, followed in 1985 by David Murdock, who saw luxury tourism as Lanai's calling. Which brings us to Ellison, or "Uncle Larry," as locals have dubbed him. He reimagined a place that many thought was already pretty perfect. With a scant 3,000 residents spread out over an idyllic 364 square kilometres and a pair of Four Seasons resorts—the swanky waterfront Manele Bay and the Lodge at Koele nestled in the mountains—it's a bucket-list destination of the one per cent. But apart from two championship golf courses at the resorts, there wasn't much else to do here. The intrepid would typically only stay a couple of days as an add-on to a trip to Maui, the ALOHA MOMENT (Clockwise from top) One of Lanai's pristine beaches; the Manele Bay hotel's golf course; poolside view at Manele Bay