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This pool with its inviting curves is perfect for making a movie-star splash. -
The two-bedroomed main villa, Mbingu (Swahili for heaven or sky), has a paparazzi-free intimate pool behind the slits of the domed tower. The Arabic-style windows are made from the ribs of an old dhow. -
The main dining area with its makuti roof, fossilised-coral walls and mangowood wood floor. -
The cosy one-bedroomed Umande Villa with its plunge pool for two is perfectly intimate for a tryst with a spy. -
This for-your-eyes-only rooftop pool with a view of the sea through “whale’s teeth” can only be accessed from Mbingu Villa’s penthouse suite. -
Licence to swim as ‘you only live twice’. -
In Kimwondo Villa, guests can glide up the staircase from the main bedroom to catch a tan on the Mantis loungers from Vogel Design or take a dip in their private rooftop plunge pool. -
A fine art print by Dook, Oris – Cape Buffalo, overlooks the lounge in Mbingu Villa, where a chef will cook special meals for guests. The bar stools and coffee table are made of mango wood from an old dhow. -
Who wouldn’t want to have a soak in this hot tub in the spa on the beach? You only live… once. -
Mary Ndongo carries a floral bouquet down to the pristine beach. Take your pick from the activities on offer: Get pampered in the spa, order coconut cocktails and laze on the beach, go for a dip or take part in one of the various water sports on offer. -
Zanzibar Getaway Spot: Xanadu Villas & Retreat
WORDS AND IMAGES Dook
Xanadu Villas and Retreat in Zanzibar is a design lighthouse in a sea of mediocrity made up of cookie-cutter chain hotels littering the spice island’s revered coastline.
At first glance, Xanadu Villas & Retreat could be mistaken for a ’70s Bond film set – the extravagant “groovy pad” that serves as the villain’s hideout. (The large villa even looks as if it could fly into space!) There is something intangibly sensual about its abundant curves and palatial haremness of its Arabic influences. One would be very wrong to label it kitsch.
The cathedralesque thatch over the main pool dining area is made of makuti panels (the sun-dried leaves of the coconut palm), as tightly packed as fish scales on the inside, smooth and hairy as a prize dog’s coat on the outside. The walls are built of pink fossilised coral blocks. The floor planks, some furniture and all the windows and doors are made of mango wood taken from a hulking old sunken trading dhow, which could only be gradually removed piece by piece every day at low tide. Each plank was then carefully carved by machete to fit, jigsaw-like, into place. The curved boat ribs naturally formed the Arabic-style door and window frames.
The one private pool has, depending how you look at it or how much you’ve had to drink, a distinctive sculpture of sails/leaves/waves/surfboard/shapes flowing/curving/crashing/cruising over it. To top off the fanciful vision, one of the villa’s massive third-floor bedrooms has a huge shining metal multi-bladed turbine-looking looking fan in the cavernous roof space that cools the room’s occupants as they make their way up a curving staircase to a private plunge pool in a capsule on the fourth floor. Its wrapped curving roof has walls with a series of open slits, giving the feeling of looking through the teeth of a whale’s mouth or delightfully imprisoned in a concubine’s boudoir.
Fancy a stay at this dreamy oasis? Visit their website to book your stay.
