Story: Hawaii, Luxury Style

When I’ve crossed the finish line on the holiday shopping marathon, the

relatives have finally gone home, and I don’t have to fake smiles

anymore over gifts of fruitcake and ugly ties, I know the holidays are

over. The sad news is that my office doesn’t know I had time off…the in

box is overflowing, my cell phone is maxed with messages, and emails are

bouncing back. Obviously, It’s time to reboot--not my computer--me.

The warm healing water and tropical air of Hawaii seemed to be the

perfect antidote, but I’ve visited often and it’s not as easy to strip

away stress as it is my clothes. Most of the time I book an impersonal

hotel or condo and rent a car, and as I try to navigate rocky roads, my

wife gets angry because I refuse to ask for directions and my nephew is

whining for shaved ice.

This time, I visited Hawaii like a local. I rented a home on the beach,

sailed in a traditional Polynesian canoe, and visited cultural sites the

average tourist never stumbles across. If Santa was good to you as he

was to me, it’s easier to adopt the Aloha spirit. Few of us can afford a

multi-million dollar beachfront home in Maui like Clint Eastwood, but if

you get your family and friends together you can rent one. By pooling

your dollars, you can live the way you deserve to, at least for a week.

Hawaii Hideaways, () will arrange

everything from your plane ride on a commercial or private jet, to

unpacking your bags, provide private yoga lessons on the sand, or

helicopter you to a private golf course on a neighboring island. “We

have concierges on call 24/7,” says CEO Anne Pawsat-Dressler. “If you

can dream it up, we can do it. There is no such thing as a bizarre

request. I had a businessman from China who sent his king-sized bed

ahead of him and we installed it in the house before he arrived.”

I can cook, but why bother when you have some of the best private chefs

in the world living in Maui. I'd heard through the coconut telegraph

about Chef Dan Fiske who will cook

breakfast, lunch and dinner any time of the day or night. “I’ve had

stockbrokers from New York who turned the living room of a rented villa

into a makeshift office with computers, printers and fax machines and

ten phone lines,” says Fiske. “They wanted breakfast every day at two am

before the Stock Exchange opened, so I was there with their lattes every

day for a month.”

Once a man with a terminal illness called Dan and said he wanted to mend

rifts within his family before he died. He rented an eight-bedroom home

in Maui for his children and grandchildren and had Chef Dan prepare all

their meals. “The little kids got to sit at the counter and eat

spaghetti and watch me cook while the adults ate fillet mignon with a

blueberry demi-glaze in the dining room.”

If you’re not renting a villa, Chef Dan will take you to his roots, so

to speak, and make dinner in the middle of the Aina Lani Farm near the

Up Country Maui town Pukalani. I helped him pick vegetables and fruits

from the garden, sliced and diced a bit, then watched him do his

culinary magic as I sipped champagne and sampled pupus. My meal started

with a salad of country mustard greens tossed with confetti of rainbow

carrots and shaved baby fennel and topped with Surfing Goat cheese (no

Hawaiian goats doesn't surf, that’s just the name of the cheese),

candied walnuts, and lilikoi lime basil vinaigrette. Next course, his

famous crispy skin Onaga (also called Ruby Snapper) fish. While the sun

set over the avocado trees, I requested that the ukulele musicians play

Tiny Bubbles. Despite the fact that they must have sung this tune so

often for mainlanders that it gives them nightmares, they graciously

sang the Don Ho classic. Maybe it helped that I asked them to share

dessert... basil leaves dipped in chocolate, an unusual sounding

combination, but the perfect contrast between tart and sweet sensations.

Sometimes even I get tired of a private chef (just call me Prince Axel)

and just want to explore the neighborhood restaurants. I had heard of

this new concept called "open cooking" at Capische in Wailea, a trendy

Italian restaurant. Those in the know go downstairs to the Il Teatro

room where chefs Brian Etheredge and Christopher Kulis have adapted the

Benihana style of cooking in your face. Instead of Japanese food

however, they’re serving up Northern European specialties. As you sit at

the counter, the chefs prepare a five-course meal including duck confit,

ahi steak, and a local fish called Opakapaka. A different wine from

around the world accompanies each course that woke up my taste buds. I

couldn’t help but make new friends, surrounded by strangers who were all

happy to be pampered.

Of course there’s more to Maui than beautiful sunsets, palm trees

blowing with the trade winds and great food...there's the history that

somehow I've managed to miss in my previous visits to the islands. This

trip I was getting culture! Open Eye Tours (http://www.openeyetours.com)

gave me a new appreciation of Paradise. “We develop custom tours for

people, depending on their interests,” says proprietor Barry Fried.

“I’ll take doctors to sacred waters and healing temples and architects

to see examples of the first thatched huts built on the island.” His

most popular request is nature walks in lava fields or tropical rain

forests, places the average tourist would never find.

The lava fields were just a short drive down the road from my Makena

Beach villa, so Barry picked me up in his jeep and we were the only ones

on the beach discovering petroglyphs and spotting wild goats running

free. He taught me a few Hawaiian chants, showed me a tropical plant

that can be used as a lotion and shampoo and maybe even grow hair, but

as he looked towards my sparse scalp, he said he couldn't promise miracles.

To really feel the Aloha spirit, you have to get in the water. Known for

their advanced water skills (it has now been proven that ancient

Hawaiians sailed to New Zealand!), the Wa’apea canoe has been the

preferred mode of travel for centuries. The boat is launched from the

sand, with passengers helping to push it through the surf and then

jumping on board. These boats (www.mauisailingcanoe.com) seat six to

eight people who sit on large trampolines with legs and feet dangling

off the front as they search for glimpses of sea turtles, manta rays,

migrating humpback whales, and dolphins.

If you were naughty and Santa wasn’t as generous as you’d like, there

are plenty of free activities in Maui. Wake up early to catch the

sunrise atop Haleakala volcano (or sleep late like me and watch the

sunset), stroll through historic Lahaina and learn about Maui's whaling

past, and drive the long and winding road to Hana’s black sand beaches.

Along the way, stop at small mom and pop fruit stands, (often

unattended), with bananas and guava sitting atop wooden crates next to

an honesty box requesting money. What a concept!!

It’s worth visiting Maui just to soak in some of that Aloha spirit,

bring some of that feeling back home, and live large even if it's only

for a week. Before you get back to work and wrapped up in returning your

voice and emails, do yourself a favor, start getting your friends or

family dialed into a return trip to the place where blackberries are

picked from trees, not answered.