The shorts-wearing banker who built a unique hotel

Being put on the spot by an awkward question led banking executive Neal Cross to spend $1 million-plus creating two eco resorts in Indonesia.

Guides from Neal Cross' hotel take guests into the nearby Gunung Leuser National Park to see orangutans such as 26-year-old male Halik (front) and 12-year-old female Juni. Alamy

Chris Wright

Updated Aug 1, 2019 – 11.22am, first published at 9.38am

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On an island off the coast of Aceh on the far north-west tip of Sumatra, Indonesia, Neal Cross is sitting in a tree house. It’s not just any tree house: it’s a work of some skill, high in the boughs, linking directly to the upper floor of a house he has built here next to his boutique hotel.

It has been constructed without a single nail being driven into the tree nor any permanent connection to the tree itself. It drifts back and forward in the wind while he looks out over the Andaman Sea, writing presentations on his laptop.