Gili Lankanfushi

Twenty minutes after leaving the airport jetty the speedboat slows beside a line of thatched roofs standing in the lagoon on timber legs. There is no island in view at first, only water and wood. Gili Lankanfushi, in North Malé Atoll, puts all of its villas over the sea, and the island itself, Lankanfushi, is a quiet afterthought of sand and palms behind them.

History

Sonu and Eva Shivdasani opened the resort in 2001 as Soneva Gili, six years after Soneva Fushi, and it was the first resort in the Maldives built entirely over water. The barefoot rules of the older house applied here from day one: no news, no shoes, and a Mr Friday butler for every villa. When the Shivdasanis sold Six Senses in 2012, this property passed to HPL Hotels & Resorts of Singapore and was renamed Gili Lankanfushi, keeping the design, the butlers and most of the staff. On 5 January 2019 a fire destroyed the main reception and restaurant building and several villas. The resort closed for eleven months and reopened in December 2019 with the public buildings rebuilt in the same timber and thatch.

Architecture and design

The villas are made of reclaimed timber, bamboo and palm thatch, joined to the island by long wooden jetties that creak underfoot. Each has an open-air bathroom, a rooftop deck for sleeping under the stars, a sunken sitting area over the lagoon and steps straight into the sea. There are no air-conditioned corridors, no concrete and no cars; guests cycle along the jetties or paddle out in kayaks. The Crusoe Residences stand apart from the main jetties and are reached only by a private boat that waits at the end of each villa's walkway. Tree-house platforms on the island hold the library and the pool table.

Rooms and suites

The resort has 45 villas. The Villa Suites along the main jetties are the standard, each more than 200 square metres with a private deck. The Crusoe Residences, reached by boat, give more isolation. The Private Reserve, the largest over-water villa in the Maldives when it opened, stands alone some distance from the rest, with its own pool, gym, spa room and cinema, and its own boat. Families take the two-bedroom Residences near the beach.

Dining

Kashiveli, the main restaurant, serves breakfast and dinner on a deck over the water. By the Sea is the Japanese restaurant, with a teppanyaki counter and a sushi bar. The Overwater Bar sits at the far end of the main jetty for sunset. An underground wine cellar, unusual on a coral island, holds the cellar dinners, and the kitchen garden on the island supplies herbs and salad leaves. Private dinners are set up on the beach or on a sandbank in the lagoon.

Wellness

Meera Spa occupies over-water treatment rooms with glass floors that look down onto the lagoon, and runs Ayurvedic and Thai treatments alongside yoga on the jetties at dawn. The house reef is a short swim from the villas, and the resort's marine biologists run a coral restoration programme, Coral Lines, in which guests can adopt a rope of coral fragments.

Weddings and events

Weddings at Gili Lankanfushi are blessing ceremonies, held on the beach, on a sandbank or on the deck of a villa, since Maldivian law does not register foreign marriages. The resort is small enough to be taken over entirely by a private group or a company, with 45 villas and no meeting rooms. The library tree house and the main restaurant are the usual gathering points for groups.

Location

Lankanfushi lies on the eastern side of North Malé Atoll, about 20 minutes by speedboat from Velana International Airport. The lagoon is shallow and sandy, and the reef edge beyond the villas is on the regular route of manta rays in season. As a luxury resort in the Maldives that avoids the seaplane, it is one of the easiest to reach from a late-evening flight.