One&Only Reethi Rah

Most Maldivian resort islands can be walked around in twenty minutes. Reethi Rah cannot. The island in North Malé Atoll that One&Only opened in May 2005 has about six kilometres of coastline, much of it reshaped during construction into a sequence of a dozen separate beaches, so that villas at one end of the island have no sight of villas at the other. The name means beautiful island in Dhivehi, and the resort was designed by Jean-Michel Gathy of Denniston, the Kuala Lumpur architect who has drawn more of the Indian Ocean's great resorts than anyone else.

History

The island was already a resort before One&Only arrived. The company, then part of Sol Kerzner's group, took it on in the early 2000s and rebuilt it from the ground up, extending the shoreline and planting mature trees so that the resort opened in 2005 with a settled landscape rather than a bare one. It has been refurbished since, most recently with new villa interiors and restaurants, and has stayed under the One&Only flag throughout.

Architecture and design

Gathy's plan uses the island's scale. The 134 villas are split between beach villas, each with its own stretch of sand and most with pools, and water villas on stilts along a curved jetty on the lagoon. Villas are large by Maldivian standards, with thatched roofs over timber frames, open-air bathrooms and decks that run the width of the building. The public areas are low and widely spaced, with the main restaurant, the spa and the beach club each on a different part of the shore. Guests move between them by bicycle or buggy along sand paths under the trees.

Rooms and suites

Beach villas begin at a size most hotels would call a suite and come with a private pool in most categories. Water villas have steps into the lagoon and sun decks on two levels. The Grand Beach Villas and the Grand Sunset Residence at the top of the range have multiple bedrooms, private pools and staff. Interiors are pale timber and white linen with the Gathy signature of deep eaves and framed sea views.

Dining

Tapasake is the restaurant most guests remember, a Japanese room built over the water at the end of a jetty with a long sushi counter. Botanica serves breakfast and Mediterranean dinners in the island's main pavilion. Reethi Restaurant handles Asian and Indian Ocean menus, and the Beach Club takes lunch by the main pool. The resort also runs private dinners on the beaches and a dining experience on a sandbank.

Wellness

The One&Only Spa is a village of treatment pavilions set back from the water with its own pool and a long list of therapies, and the resort runs a fitness centre with classes and a tennis court. Water sports from the beaches include sailing, kitesurfing, diving on the atoll's reefs and snorkelling on the house reef. The size of the island means it is possible to spend a week there without sitting on the same beach twice.

Weddings and events

Weddings are held on the beaches and the overwater decks, with ceremonies arranged by the resort and dinners at Tapasake or on the sand. The resort offers a chapel-free, barefoot format and handles blessings rather than legal ceremonies, as marriage law in the Maldives does not allow foreign civil weddings. Small corporate groups and buyouts are taken; there are no conference rooms.

Location

Reethi Rah lies in the north of North Malé Atoll, about 35 kilometres from Malé. Guests arriving at Velana International Airport are met at the One&Only lounge and taken by the resort's yacht, a crossing of about an hour, or by seaplane in daylight. The island is far enough north to be out of the capital's traffic and close enough that the transfer is short. As a luxury resort in the Maldives it is judged on space before anything else, and few islands in the country have more of it.