THE SWEETEST ESCAPE: THE BRANDO

THE BRANDO

Sometimes, the sweetest times are the times you can escape and the sweetest places are the places you can escape to. One of the sweetest options out there is the eco-luxe The Brando resort, on the Tetiaroa atoll, in French Polynesia.

BeautifulNow first wrote about The Brando opening three years ago. Since then, the remote resort has welcomed a few high-profile escapees, including Michelle & Barack Obama, just after he left office, and Pippa Middleton and James Matthews on their honeymoon.

This secluded sweet spot is home to only 35 villas, so you can have a very private experience. But, if you don’t make the cut, there’s new hope… this month, The Brando is launching satellite Brando villas in the InterContinental Bora Bora.

If you stay at the private island version of The Brando, you can extend your experience, with the same level of style at the four overwater Bora Bora villas.

Bora Bora is usually where people fly into on their way to the private island, so these villas make a great stopover spot as well. They come with gorgeous views of the surrounding lagoon and Mt. Otemanu, as well as giant plunge pools. They also include access to the first seawater therapy spa in French Polynesia, beautiful restaurants, and a glass-bottomed chapel.

While it might seem like a fantasy, this place is real. The Brando sits in the middle of the South Pacific but feels like it’s sitting in the middle of another beautiful planet. 

It is located on actor Marlon Brando’s private atoll of Tetiaroa, 30 miles north of Tahiti, along the coast of Motu Onetahi, in French Polynesia.

It is a place of great physical, experiential, and spiritual beauty. The Brando aims to “provide one of the most luxurious, authentic and enriching travel experiences available anywhere in the world in an environmentally sensitive, sustainable and culturally rich manner.”

Marlon Brando discovered the atoll while filming Mutiny on the Bounty in 1960. Six years later, he purchased it for $270,000. He lived there with his wife, the Mutiny costar, French Polynesian actress Tarita Teriipia, and their two children, for weeks at a time, as he escaped the polar opposite of Hollywood.

In 1999, Brando met up with Richard Bailey, a Tahiti-based developer and the chairman of Pacific Beachcomber, and began to conjure an idea. He wanted to create a resort that would both celebrate and nurture the glorious natural beauty of the atoll.

It took a while before Bailey agreed, but once he saw the light, he spent the next 15 years making Brando’s vision happen. The Brando opened last July.

Brando was a real eco-visionary -- way ahead of his time.

He didn’t want any fossil fuels, asphalt, or synthetic materials used to build or operate the resort, for example. He insisted on the lightest of human footprints. He wanted an organic farm, a honeybee farm, a lobster hatchery, a marine biology laboratory, and a school for the local population. And Bailey designed it all for him.

The resort’s 35 villas have been designed without beach obstructions so they blend harmoniously into the trees. Only local sustainable materials have been used in the design and construction. They each have their own seawater-filled swimming pool.

The entire resort runs on renewable energies.

Solar panels and coconut-oil biofuel provide all of the atoll’s energy. Even the air conditioning system is beautiful and radical. It is a Seawater Air Conditioning (SWAC) harnesses the cold deep seawater surrounding the atoll. Marlon Brando first became interested in this technology concept in the 1970’s.

The Brando is set to become the first resort in the world to obtain LEED Platinum certification.

The Brando hopes to leave Tetiaroa a better place than it was before they came. They consider themselves to be stewards of the atoll, and believe that they have the responsibility to treat it with the highest level of care and respect, preserving it forever in its natural state.  

The Brando has onsite naturalists and atoll archaeologists, who both study and teach there. Brando’s granddaughter Tumi can take you on bird-watching hikes, coral-reef expeditions, and whale-watching tours. 

You can attend to yourself at the holistic spa, which also offers indigenous therapies. Do it outside with a kayak, canoe, outrigger or paddleboard.

Beyond the luxury of nature, there is luxury of artful experience at The Brando as well. You can indulge on French and Polynesian delights in the two restaurants by the Michelin-rated chef Guy Martin (formerly of Paris’s Le Grand Véfour). Killer wine cellar onboard.

What can you shop for on an atoll? Pearls of course! Check out the incredible jewelry at The Brando’s  pearl boutique.

The Brando has built and gifted an Eco Station to Tetiaroa Society, the nonprofit organization established to lead the scientific and cultural mission to protect the atoll and to inspire sustainable interdependence on Tetiaroa and around the world.