- Bill Bensley, now 65, left SH.BA and moved to Asia shortly after graduation.
- The architect and stylist have built over 200 hotels, including three featured in the last season of “The White Lotus”.
- Bensley says he is not sure he could have built a portfolio comparable again in the SH.BA
Some careers are formed by chance. For Bill Bensley, it all started on the day of graduation in 1984, when a classmate mentioned that he was moving to Singapore.
“That seemed so exotic, I asked if I could go too,” he told Business Insider.
This spontaneous decision began a forty -year -old architecture career in which Bensley has built over 200 hotels in 30 countries. This includes nine projects for four season hotels, one of which – four seasons Samui – is presented in the third season of the HBO series massively popular “The White Lotus”.
Cocorum, a bar on Four Season Resort Koh Samui, was created by Bensley. Resort four seasons Koha Samui
Odder, the better
Bensley’s design mantra is simple: “Odder, the better”.
His models are known to be miraculous, theatrical and deeply diving.
At the Shinta Mani Wild of Cambodia-a jungle attraction that opened in 2019-Bensley and his team installed a 400-meter chain over the jungle that transports guests to luxury tents.
on Khao Yai Intercontinental in Thailand, about 120 miles northeast of Bangkok, his team returned Abandoned train carriages in the hotel suites.
Bensley designed a chain to transport guests to the Jungle Wild Shinta Mani in the camboxh. Shinta craze wild
From the farm to the fame
Bensley was born in California and grew up on a small farm, growing bees, quails, and growing chickens and vegetables and mushrooms. His family spent weekends traveling on a trailer, with summer trips turning into inter-country adventures.
“I was lucky enough to learn how to survive in the wild,” he says. “This formed everything I do.”
Bensley won a master’s degree in landscape architecture from the Polytechnic University of California, followed by a Harvard urban design degree. On his day of graduation in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he did not have a job lined. “I couldn’t even understand a career in designing hospitality then,” he said.
But he followed his classmate’s advice and traveled to Asia.
Bill Bensley was in Indonesia in 1985, a year after he moved to Asia. Bill Bensley
Competition was scarce
Immediately after arriving in Singapore, Bensley landed a job with a US landscape architecture firm. His first major project was Bali Hyatt.
At 29, he set up Bensley Studio in a parking garage in Bangkok. “In 1989, there were not many landscape architects in the city,” he said.
Bensley set up his first studio in a parking garage in Bangkok, now, he runs a team. Bill Bensley
His wallet quickly expanded, and after a few years, Bensley received an offer to design a resort in Hawaii. “The four seasons Halalalai was my progress project on the big island of Hava,” he said. Construction for the resort on the Kona-time coast began in 1993.
In 2000, Bensley’s company landed another commission with the company, this time to build four seasons Samui four seasons. The area was covered with hundreds of coconut trees, some over 50 years old. “When the hotel was over, all 856 trees were still standing,” he said.
Today, that resort, displaying villas with private pools located in the tropical jungle overlooking Thailand Bay, It is in the spotlight as one of the backgrounds for the third season of the HBO white lotus.
He has high praise for the appearance of the show: “Some of the garden cinematography are out of this world and it looks even better than real life,” he said.
Monkeys used to harvest coconut in the place where the resort now stands.
“So monkey statues you see in ‘Lotus White’ are my models that pay homage to the island’s agricultural history,” he said.
In 2023, Mike White, the writer and director of the “White Lotus”, spent time in Thailand, discovering places and studying Thai culture. Bensley says they became friends.
Production reserved the resort for two months last year for filming.
“Mike has now filmed in three of my hotels in southern Thailand,” Bensley said, referring to Anaantara Bophut Koh Samui and anantara Mai Khao Phuket Villas.
Bensley shared some background for Monkeys in Four Season Resort Koh Samui, which were presented in the last season of “The White Lotus”. Resort four seasons Koha Samui
Asia -inspired models
Bensley says his trips across Asia – from Thailand to Cambodia and Indonesia – have formed his models.
“Today, I think I really understand Southeast Asia,” Bensley said. He said learning to speak Thai and Indonesian has helped him navigate different cultures and communicate his design vision more effectively.
The environment plays a big role as well. Tropical locations give designers the opportunity to blur the border between the natural landscape and architecture, said Alex Yuen, a lecturer at Harvard’s graduate design school.
“Outside Hawaii, where he worked, there are not many places in the countries that would match the environment in which he thrives,” Yuen told BI.
The cost is also a factor.
“Given the amount of ornaments and details found in models, you just won’t get that kind of agreement if anyone would develop property in the US,” Yuen said.
Bensley is not sure he could have built a portfolio comparable to what he had collected in Asia if he had stayed in the SH.BA
“In my experience, working in the US is so much more restrictive and focused on cost,” Bensley said.
Bensley lives in Bangkok with his husband and five Jack Russells. Bill Bensley
Not slowing down
Bensley has no regret for moving abroad. “I am glad that I made the bold movement to work in Asia right after school,” he said. “I am happy with the life I have built.”
Despite his full schedule, Bensley knows how to make time for the things he loves. He paints, tends in his garden, enjoys fishing and likes to travel. He lives in Bangkok with Jirachai Reston, his partner over 35 years and five Jack Russells.
He always travels with a sketch. “Sketch is the key to understanding architecture or any kind of space,” he said. “If you can’t sketch it, you don’t understand. Iphones are useless as a teaching tool.”
Bensley, now 65, has no plan to leave Thailand or stop working. Only this year, he is doing over 10 new projects, with the openings of hotels involving the United Arab Emirates, China, Puerto Rico, Turkey and India.
“I will never retire, as I have the most interesting work in the world.”