I love this hotel!

I wrote an article on Sunday. It was meh. Deleted it.

I wrote another one on Monday. Also meh. Deleted that too.

Then I thought about one of my favorite small hotels. 

So that is what you are getting today.

How we found it

We stumbled onto this hotel by accident. My younger sister Karina did, to be exact. She was getting married in Hawaii about six years ago and needed a hotel close to the venue. 

It was a small 24-room hotel called Lumeria.

I did not expect much. I am not sure I even looked it up before we flew in.

We arrived in batches. 

Rod, my dad, and I landed on Maui on a windy July day. 

I was pulling two suitcases out of the airport and pinning my hat down with my shoulder so the wind would not take it. It was as warm as a day gets. 

We picked up the rental car, wound through the curvy island roads, and eventually pulled into the place.

The entrance was a jungle. Trees everywhere. From the driveway it did not look like a hotel at all.

The shape

We walked to the lobby, then to our rooms, and I noticed something right away. 

The building is a simple square from above, with one side open. 

The rooms sit on both sides of that square.

Photo courtesy of Lumeria Maui

The rooms facing inward look onto a courtyard full of color. Trees, bushes, flowers. The rooms facing outward get a completely different view. Some looked at the ocean and a stand of pines. Others looked into gardens.

Here is why it is smart. One building, one footprint, two different experiences. A guest can come back a second time and have a new stay without the owner adding a single room.

It is smart on the construction side too. One story.(You know I love one story buildings) One roof. Rooms share walls, so you are not paying for four exterior walls per unit. Fewer foundations, fewer rooflines, fewer places for water to get in. It is one of the cheapest ways to build a lot of keys.

Half the rooms open onto the same courtyard. You see your neighbors walking to yoga or dinner. It creates a community feel without anyone forcing it, and it gives the place a vibe you do not get from a white corridor with numbered doors.

Note to self: take more photos

I had to cut these screenshots from a short video I took...

The landscaping is the amenity

At most hotels the landscaping is decoration. 

Sometimes a chore. 

Here it is the product.

The property sits on just 5.6 acres in Upcountry Maui, between the plantation towns of Paia and Makawao. 

About 200 species of plants grow on the grounds, and many of them are edible. Mango, lilikoi, guava, avocado, papaya. The on-site restaurant, The Wooden Crate, cooks with what grows on the property and what nearby farms bring in. They also use the gardens as outdoor classrooms for horticulture classes.

Then there is the rest: an outdoor yoga platform, a saline pool and jacuzzi, a stone labyrinth for walking meditation, and a hammock forest with ocean views. Fire pits get lit every evening.

None of this is a water slide. None of it is expensive to run. It is just land, used well.

The rehearsal dinner

We held Karina's rehearsal dinner there the night before the wedding. It felt like a dinner at someone's home. Quiet. Surrounded by trees. It was beautiful.

I found out later that this is by design. The property has a sunken garden terrace that seats up to 100 for a meal, a lobby they call the Sanctuary that hosts up to 80, and two yoga studios that double as meeting rooms. So they can host a wedding party, a corporate retreat, or a 15-person fire pit circle without any of it feeling like an event space. It takes a special talent to pull that off, and they did it with grace.

Color that disappears

The buildings are painted a dark green on wood. It does not fight the nature around it. It sinks into it. And that was one of the many good choices they made.

The lamps give off a soft glow at night. The rooms inside are simple and do not compete for your eye. Each of the 24 rooms is individually furnished, with pieces from local artists, but the overall effect is calm, not curated.

This is harder than it sounds. Many hotels overdesign. The instinct is to add. Lumeria subtracts.

The part I did not know

I found this out only when I went back to their site for this article.

The property was built in 1910 as the Fred C. Baldwin Memorial Home. It was renovated and reopened in 2010, a full century later. They kept the original buildings so the place would feel like old Hawaii.

It is also an educational retreat center. Daily classes in yoga, meditation, healing arts, horticulture, Hawaiian culture, and movement are included with every overnight stay. There is a spa. There is a farm-to-table restaurant. 

What a well-crafted place!

Photo courtesy of Lumeria Maui

One more thing

No single decision made this hotel. It was hundreds of choices, big and tiny. The shape of the building. The dark green paint. The soft lamps. The labyrinth. The plain rooms. And the place itself, the land and the old buildings on it.

Together they gave Lumeria something I cannot name exactly. 

An energy. 

I have stayed at hotels/cabins that look more polished on the surface and do not have it.

That's all for today. 

Till next week, dear readers.