(Bloomberg Businessweek) -- It’s said that when King Solomon wanted to build his temple, he sent his best carpenters to scour the Earth in search of its finest timber. They eventually made it to Madagascar, where they felled majestic trunks of sweet-smelling rosewood to bring to the Holy Land. A few of the men fell under the spell of the island’s beauty and chose to remain. To this day, some Malagasy claim distant Jewish ancestry.
Whether you take the tale as a fable or accept it at face value, the so-called Eighth Continent is still likely to hold an unsuspecting traveler in its grip. Most visitors come to see its population of skyward lemurs—Madagascar has roughly 100 species, and they’re found nowhere else. Others are eager to experience the Jurassic-looking jungles—where nighttime wildlife tours reveal prehistoric creatures such as the spiral-tailed panther chameleon—or the Avenue of the Baobabs, a forest of skyscraper-tall trees that look as if they’ve been uprooted and flipped upside down.
Thierry Dalais, 59, who serves as chairman of a young, ambitious consortium of eco-luxe safari lodges called Time + Tide, arrived as most people before him: wide-eyed and curious about the mythical island nation. He invested in a seaweed-farming company, but his crops failed, the victim of marine degradation. Dalais’s next idea was to tap into conservation and its potential to draw tourists to this special place in the shadow of 1,000-year-old trees, 700 miles away from his home on Mauritius.
That’s how the island’s first five-star resort was born—its name, Miavana, means “to come together” in the local dialect. It opened last May with 14 retro-style megavillas along an arcing strip of beige sand on the island of Nosy Ankao. It’s by far the most ambitious hospitality project the country has ever seen.
Getting here from most major cities is itself a journey of biblical proportions, involving a long-haul flight to Johannesburg, a half-day’s transit through the capital of Antananarivo to the north of Madagascar, and a helicopter charter across a strip of the Indian Ocean. But once you step off the chopper and into the hands of your private butler—who welcomes you with freshly cracked coconut—you’ll immediately relax. The property’s developers want to position it as a viable vacation alternative to the private-island oases of the nearby Seychelles, and it succeeds.
For one thing, Dalais used the same architects who created North Island, the extravagant Seychelles resort where Kate Middleton and Prince William famously honeymooned. The South Africa-based firm founded by husband-and-wife duo Silvio Rech and Lesley Carstens is known for crafting tropical paradises in Kenya and Zambia. With Dalais, they imagined the resort from the sand up. Sleek, understated cottages are built out of hand-hewn stone etched to resemble the ropy, mosaiclike bark of the local trees. Inside are platform beds with mosquito nets that hang from the ceiling. Bathrooms open up to generous, walled-off outdoor shower areas. Turquoise water and a palm-flanked beach are visible through a series of glass-paneled walls that fold together like a Chinese screen.
Days at Miavana begin in an open-air, thatched-roof dining room, where breakfasts are prepared with the precision of a Japanese tea ceremony (the granola is hand-sorted) and served by kind, mostly local staffers. It would be perfectly acceptable to hide away on the resort all day long, kite surfing in the quiet lagoon or getting botanical-infused massages on your private deck. It’s just as easy to spend a full week exploring the natural bounty nearby: Diving excursions take place among bowmouth guitarfish and humpback whales in valleys of pristine cauliflower coral. Private helicopters can take travelers on a wide variety of untrammeled adventures. Safaris in vine-strewn jungles provide an opportunity to spot mustachioed golden crowned sifakas and other nocturnal lemurs; hikes through Ankarana Reserve pass spiky, limestone tsingy formations that resemble overgrown crocodile teeth.
Although Madagascar has dealt with outbreaks of the plague almost annually since 1980, they’ve tended to be concentrated in major cities, far from Miavana. In early February the World Health Organization issued a statement saying that last year’s especially strong contagion has been brought under control.
At Miavana, everything is inclusive with your stay, including a $100 conservation levy that goes directly to the Time + Tide Foundation. The not-for-profit arm of Dalais’s company has a holistic approach to environmentalism that also considers economic impact. He says he hopes to use those funds for job creation and wildlife conservation, which often go hand in hand. Already, he’s getting students from the town of Andasibe involved in reforestation efforts (critical to the lemurs’ survival) and shifting jobs from slash-and-burn agriculture to hospitality. All this should help ensure that the last of Solomon’s trees will remain preserved for thousands of years.
Nightly rates start at $2,900 per person. Booking your trip with a locally savvy operator, such as Mango African Safaris, is essential to streamline the complicated travel logistics.
To contact the author of this story: Brandon Presser in New York at brandon.presser@gmail.com.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Gaddy at jgaddy@bloomberg.net, Nikki Ekstein
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