Soneva Fushi

A seaplane banks over Baa Atoll and the first thing you notice about Kunfunadhoo is the trees. Soneva Fushi, the resort that Sonu and Eva Shivdasani opened on this island in 1995, keeps its villas under coconut palms and screw pines so thoroughly that from the air the place looks uninhabited. The Maldives has built well over a hundred resorts since. This is the one most of them were copying.

History

Sonu Shivdasani, born in London to an Indian trading family, and his Swedish wife Eva took a lease on Kunfunadhoo in the early 1990s, when the island held little more than a run-down guesthouse. They opened Soneva Fushi in 1995 with the phrase that still governs the house, no news, no shoes: guests surrender their footwear at the jetty and go barefoot until they leave. The resort became the founding property of the Six Senses group, which the Shivdasanis built up and sold in 2012, keeping Soneva Fushi, Soneva Kiri in Thailand and the Soneva name. A second Maldivian resort, Soneva Jani in Noonu Atoll, followed in 2016. In 2011 UNESCO declared Baa Atoll a Biosphere Reserve, the first in the country, partly on the strength of Hanifaru Bay, the manta ray feeding ground that lies within reach of the resort's boats.

Architecture and design

Eva Shivdasani designed the interiors herself and still oversees them. The villas are built of timber, thatch and sand-coloured render, open-sided where the climate allows, with bathrooms set in walled gardens under the sky. Nothing rises above the tree line. Guests move about on bicycles along sand paths, and each villa comes with a Mr or Ms Friday, a butler named after Crusoe's companion. The island has its own glass studio, Soneva Art & Glass, which melts down bottles from the bars into tableware and sculpture; glass artists from abroad work there in residence. An observatory with a large telescope, an open-air cinema among the palms, and a chocolate room and ice-cream parlour that are free to every guest complete the public spaces.

Rooms and suites

The villas stand along the beach rather than over the lagoon, from one-bedroom Crusoe Villas to the nine-bedroom Private Reserve with its own pool and water slide. The Jungle Reserve sits in the interior of the island among the trees. In 2021 Soneva added its first over-water villas on the edge of the reef, each with a slide from the upper deck into the lagoon. Most villas have a private pool; all have an outdoor bathroom and a path straight onto the sand. Children get their own territory in The Den, one of the larger kids' clubs in the Indian Ocean.

Dining

Fresh in the Garden sits on stilts above the resort's vegetable plots, reached by a rope bridge, and cooks with what grows beneath it. Out of the Blue, the over-water dining complex opened in 2019, gathers several kitchens under one roof, among them a teppanyaki counter and a plant-based restaurant. Flying Sauces, added in 2022, is reached by zip wire through the treetops. The wine cellar is one of the deepest in the country and the sommeliers take the pairing dinners seriously. The chocolate and ice-cream rooms stay open all day.

Wellness

The spa grew out of the Six Senses tradition and was relaunched as Soneva Soul in 2021, mixing treatment pavilions in the trees with doctors offering longevity and diagnostic programmes. There is a gym, yoga pavilions and a full menu of Ayurvedic treatments.

Weddings and events

The Maldives does not register foreign marriages, so weddings at Soneva Fushi are blessing ceremonies on the beach or on a sandbank, followed by dinner under the stars. Larger families and private groups take the Private Reserve or book several villas together. There are no conference rooms; meetings happen in villas or in the open-air cinema and library.

Location

Kunfunadhoo lies in Baa Atoll, about 35 minutes by seaplane from Velana International Airport at Malé. A domestic flight to Dharavandhoo followed by a short boat transfer is the alternative. Hanifaru Bay, where manta rays gather between May and November, is a protected site reachable by resort boat under a strict visitor quota. As a luxury resort on a Maldivian island goes, this one is unusually large and unusually green.