The super-luxury hotel that was once Marlon Brando’s house
IT’S a neighbour to one of the most beautiful and famous places on Earth and word is just starting to get out about it. But there’s just one problem here.
WHEN Marlon Brando filmed a movie on this island in French Polynesia in the 1960s he loved it so much that he bought it and built a house.
It has since been converted into a super-luxury hotel where you can stay in for about A$4000 a night - the price tag includes all food, beverages, a spa treatment per guest and most activities.
The resort has 35 one, two and three bedroom villas, designed to reflect Polynesian lifestyle and culture, set in the shade of coconut trees, each with its own private beach area and plunge pool.
But if you’re after the overwater villas that are so popular on neighbouring island, such as Bora Bora and La’Taha, you won’t find them here, as Brando believed them to be an encroachment on nature.
The actor fell in love with Tetiaroa (and local beauty, 19-year-old Tarita Teriipaia, whom he married) while filming Mutiny on the Bounty in French Polynesia and purchased it as the ultimate retreat from Hollywood.
It was, and still is, a place out of time — with its untouched, white sand beaches and bright turquoise water.
Once Brando took ownership of the island six years after his first sighting, visitors would see him wearing a sarong, barefoot and with his hair swept up in a ponytail. He intended to make the island part environmental laboratory and part resort, and once said: “My mind is always soothed when I imagine myself sitting on my South Sea island at night”.
Brando, Tarita and his Tahitian children lived on Tetiaroa for several years and he opened a small inn, Tetiaroa Village, on the island so that others could experience his private paradise, among them famous friends, such as Robert De Niro and Quincy Jones.
The actor was devoted to innovation, writes Susan Mizruchi, the author of Brando’s Smile.
He was one of the first in “Hollywood to own a personal computer, he used his private island in Tahiti to test methods of sustainability, from ocean-farming and discovering new food sources to air-conditioning via seawater technology,” she writes.
In 1999, Brando asked Richard Bailey, a long-time resident of Tahiti who has created and operates some of the region’s finest resorts, to help him conceive a plan that would help Brando achieve his dream for a lush eco-resort.
Together, they created the world’s first “post-carbon” resort — an island where innovative new technologies would enable a self-sustaining luxury environment for hotel guests.
The reimagined resort is a contemporary take on the original. Once off-limits to anyone apart from the Tahiti royalty, it opened to guests last July and as of Thursday it will be available for reservation on Booking.com.
And getting here is half the fun, it’s 60km north of the island of Tahiti — to get here you take a 20-minute private plane flight from Papeete, Tahiti.
And as you would expect for such as price tag, the food served at the Brando is out of this world, thanks to the award-winning cuisine of Guy Martin of the Michelin two star restaurant Le Grand Véfour in Paris.
The Brando is a founding member and one of 24 properties in National Geographic Society’s Unique Lodges of the World, a collection of boutique hotels in extraordinary places around the world with a demonstrated commitment to sustainability.
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