Key to the drama are the suites, all carefully decorated to reflect their occupants, while keeping to strict ground rules laid down by the resort. While they weren’t allowed to paint the rooms, they could change the materials, bedding and curtains – an important factor, as production designer Laura Fox explained to Architectural Digest: “They’re lovely rooms, but not to film in. I think [my job] was trying to find a version of a new hotel that was kitschy and flawed and rich, like the characters.”
Wailea Beach, Maui, HawaiiGetty Images
The Palm Suite, home-from-home to honeymooners Shane (Jake Lacy) and Rachel (Alexandra Daddario), is one of the resort’s Elite Oceanfront Suites – given what Fox called an ‘anti-beach’ makeover with vintage greens, velvet and hanging lights. The White Lotus’s other honeymoon suite, the Pineapple, is the Lokelani Presidential Suite – at 4,500 square feet, the hotel’s (and Hawaii’s) largest, with three bedrooms, five bathrooms and two living rooms. This was given a palette of yellow, green and brown with, of course, pineapple motifs.
For volatile Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge), who arrives with her mother’s ashes in a plastic bag, the Hibiscus Suite was created in one of the Oceanfront Prime Suites, with pinks and reds expressly designed to clash with her sartorial fondness for bright prints. Then, for the Mossbacher family, led by tech exec Nicole (Britton), the Tradewinds Suite was created from the Maile Presidential Suite, with a range of blues and very Seventies Hawaiian art. This was the biggest departure from the real hotel: in the show’s Tradewinds, the Mossbacher kids sleep in the living room, but the Maile is in fact the Four Seasons Maui’s second-largest suite, with three bedrooms, four bathrooms and full sauna included.
Four Seasons Resort, Maui, HawaiiQuentin Bacon
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