Vintage Glamour: Doris Duke's Esoteric Paradise, Shangri La

Doris Duke was only twenty-two years old when she envisioned Shangri La. It was 1935, the same year she married and embarked on a honeymoon tour of the world, a trip that profoundly affected the rest of her life. She traveled to eastern destinations such as Egypt, India, Indonesia, and China for the first time and became fascinated by the rich cultural traditions, in particular the Islamic ones, she encountered. In the course of the trip, Duke began to collect works of art for the Florida home she and her husband, James Cromwell, expected to occupy. But the young couple’s final stop on their honeymoon, in what was then the U.S. Territory of Hawai‘i, made an equally powerful impression. Indeed, the newlyweds extended their stay in Honolulu by several weeks, so pleased were they by the friends they made and the landscapes they viewed. Within months of returning from her honeymoon, inspired by her travels, Duke decided to build a home in Honolulu, where she felt comfortable and relaxed, and to fill it with Islamic art and architecture, the aesthetics of which she so keenly admired. Together, this pairing of cultures was her “Shangri La,” and her estate came to be called by this name, which evokes an idyllic world.

Duke’s interest in Hawaiian and Islamic cultures was far removed from the East Coast social circle in which she was raised. Born in New York City on November 22, 1912, Doris Duke was the only child of well-known entrepreneur James Buchanan Duke and Nanaline Holt Inman Duke. By the time his daughter was born, J. B. Duke had already amassed an enormous fortune, as a founder of the American Tobacco Company and Duke Energy Company. His financial success propelled the Dukes into the society of the Vanderbilts, Astors, and other wealthy families of the industrial age. Doris Duke’s position was one of privilege, and her life was, consequently, of great public interest. It was said that, as her father’s primary beneficiary, she would be the wealthiest heir in America. The prediction was tested sooner than anyone expected. J. B. Duke died in 1925, when his daughter was still a young girl, and she did indeed inherit the bulk of his estate.
The press dubbed Duke “the richest girl in the world” following her father’s death, a sobriquet of both sympathy and censure. Yet this new identity provided Duke with a rare independence for a woman of her time. With financial freedom and control of her life, she chose to move beyond such social rituals as debutante balls and galas. She traveled extensively, made friends around the world, and built Shangri La, a home that would serve as her place of retreat and creative self-expression.
Duke’s youthful passions for Islamic art and for Hawai‘i proved enduring. She maintained her love of living in Honolulu, and she continued to collect Islamic art for Shangri La until her death in 1993 at the age of eighty.A philanthropist at heart, Duke provided in her will for the creation of the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art to own Shangri La and to “promote the study and understanding of Middle Eastern art and culture” and to “make this property available to scholars, students and others interested in the furtherance and preservation of Islamic art and make the premises open to the public.” Today, under the shadow of Diamond Head, Shangri La’s doors are open.

— Excerpt from "Doris Duke's Shangri La" by Sharon Littlefield