Maldives · Randheli Island
A private island in the Noonu atoll, run with the precision of a Paris atelier.
You do not arrive at Randheli by boat. Cheval Blanc keeps its own Seaplane Salon at Malé — a lounge rather than a gate, where you are sat down and given something cold instead of processed — and its own Twin Otter, painted in the maison's taupe and Randheli's pop yellow, which carries you out over the atolls and puts you down on the water. The first thing on the island that is neither sand nor palm is a copper arch standing alone in the shallows off the beach, a Vincent Beaurin sculpture, and it tells you the place was composed rather than built. Jean-Michel Gathy drew the buildings into what was already there, and the interiors are rattan, bamboo and mother of pearl against pop yellow, taupe and white. You are met with a chilled towel and walked to a villa that feels like a gallery facing the sea.
The water villas are all clean lines and blond wood, with floor-to-ceiling glass that slides away until there is nothing between the room and the lagoon. At dusk the walls take the pink of the sky and the pool on the deck turns to mercury. Nothing in the room competes with that: no clutter, no ornament, so the only thing left to look at is the water going dark.
Cheval Blanc calls the people who look after you Alchimistes, and they work the way a great European house works: a thing is put right before you have noticed it was wrong, and what you asked for yesterday arrives again today without being asked for. Nothing here is ever made to look like effort.
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Le Paddock. The teenagers' lounge, and deliberately not the children's club: drawing walls, virtual-reality headsets, a corner for making things, a corner for sport, and a surf simulator. It runs from 9 in the morning until 10 at night, 4 hours later than Le Carrousel, which is exactly the stretch a 15-year-old cares about.
The Arch. Vincent Beaurin's copper arch stands out in the lagoon off the beach, monumental and entirely alone, and it answers the mirrored Trojan horse at Cheval Blanc Courchevel. It is not his only piece here: Couronne, 46 coloured spots, is set into every villa. The pop yellow runs on through the art, the amenities and the gifts, and François Demachy, Dior's nose, made the island a scent of cardamom, rose and driftwood to go with it.
The Seaplane. Cheval Blanc flies its own: a Twin Otter in the maison's taupe and Randheli's pop yellow, and it is what carries guests between Malé and the island. It does not leave you in a terminal at either end. There is a private Seaplane Salon at Malé, so you wait for the flight in an armchair rather than in a queue.
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The Water Villas stand on stilts over the lagoon and face the sunset.
The Island Villas sit on sand, on their own island, with the water at the end of the garden instead of under the floor. Overwater is the postcard. Sand is the better base if you plan to walk anywhere, and it is much better with children.
Every pool here is heated, infinity-edged and angled at the sunset, and that is standard rather than an upgrade. What separates the villas is size and seclusion, never whether you get water of your own.
Nothing here is ever made to look like effort.
Randheli Island
Noonu Atoll
Randheli, Noonu Atoll 00000
Maldives
Rates are quoted for your dates.
The Water. There are 3 kinds of it, and they are not interchangeable. The main pool is a long rectangle set back under the palms with the lagoon a few steps beyond it, and it is the quiet one. Every villa has a pool of its own, which is standard here rather than an upgrade. And the sand runs across all 6 islands, so the beach outside your door is not the only one.
Villa
220 m² · Sleeps 3 + 1 child
Lagoon and sunset
A bedroom that opens entirely to the sea, a bath with a view out over the water, and an infinity pool on the deck angled at the sunset. Blond wood, glass and lagoon light, 220 square metres of it, overwater on stilts.
Villa
1,600 m² · Sleeps 8 + 1 child
Private island and lagoon
Its own island within the resort — 4 bedrooms, a 25-metre pool, a spa suite, a gym, and a full staff including a chef and a butler. It is the most private thing here: a piece of the atoll with water on every side of it and nobody else on it.
Villa
220 m² · Sleeps 3 + 1 child
Lagoon, with a walled garden
Still overwater, despite the name: the same 220 square metres as the Water Villa, on the same stilts, with the same 12.5-metre pool. What it has instead of open lagoon on every side is a walled garden on the deck, with a dining table under the trees. You trade some horizon for a breakfast nobody on a passing boat can see.
Villa
240 m² · Sleeps 3 + 1 child
Beach and lagoon
On the sand rather than over the water, and with a child in the party it is the better room rather than the lesser one: 240 square metres opening onto beach you can walk straight off, a pool at ground level, and no ladder down into a lagoon anywhere. The planting is old enough to give real shade by mid-morning. The trade is the obvious one — no glass floor, no fish under the bed, and a sunset watched from a chair rather than from the water.
Villa
295 m² · Sleeps 4 + 2 children
Lagoon, with a walled garden
The one-bedroom villa with a second bedroom attached: 295 square metres overwater, the garden and the pool shared between the two halves, and a door that closes properly between them. The second bedroom has its own bathroom, which is the detail that decides it.
Villa
300 m² · Sleeps 4 + 2 children
Beach and lagoon
On the sand: 300 square metres, two bedrooms, and the largest stretch of private beach of any villa short of the island itself. Everything is at ground level and everything opens outward, so children can be let out of a door rather than watched near a deck edge. It sleeps 6, and nobody has to sleep in a living room.
A short list of extraordinary places to stay.
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