Cover Nihi Rote is slated to open in October 2026
Nihi Rote is slated to open in October 2026
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For more than three decades, Nihi Sumba, one of the world’s first luxury eco-resorts, has been known to travel aficionados for its raw design and philanthropic approach. As it enters a new chapter with its sister property Nihi Rote this year, we speak to the people responsible for its ambitions
Looking at Nihi Sumba now—the award-winning luxury resort, with its grand, canopied ceilings, lush fabrics and Insta-famous wild horses splashing along its ivory beaches—it is hard to believe that its founders Claude and Petra Graves had to negotiate with tribal kings and sacrifice boars for permission to build on this pristine sliver of land.
The Graves, an American couple from Jersey Shore, came to this Indonesian island in the 1980s in search of the best surf breaks in Southeast Asia. They fell in love with this pocket of paradise and decided to build a resort—the problem was, the island had no running water, electricity or nearby medical facilities. What’s more, the region’s villages were plagued by some of the highest infection rates of malaria in the world; the couple themselves contracted the disease dozens of times. Nevertheless, they persisted, in 1988 opening Nihiwatu, which was later renamed Nihi Sumba.
Necessity being the mother of invention, the island’s deficiencies became the impetus for the greatest assets of Nihi Sumba, a resort that has been a Tatler Best 100 honouree since the award’s inception in 2024, and also appears on The World’s 50 Best Hotels and is a Michelin Three-Key hotel. By establishing a property that had to produce its own food and bio-diesel, and funded medical centres for locals who worked on the property, the Graves inadvertently designed one of the world’s first barefoot luxury eco-lodges, decades before “sustainability” became a buzzword.
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A fateful visit in 2012 by American billionaire entrepreneur Chris Burch, on holiday with his three sons (whom he shares with his ex-wife, fashion designer Tory Burch), transformed Nihi Sumba for good. Falling in love with the island, he bought the property from the Graves, partnered with South African hotelier James McBride of New York’s Carlyle Hotel fame, and kickstarted its luxury transformation, while maintaining the soul that the Graves had so carefully protected.
“The original brief Chris and I developed with interior designers Susan Colley and Marco Scarani was clear: local textiles, indigenous woods, bamboo and ikat, executed with sophistication; chic, never opulent,” says McBride. “The alang alang [a type of grass] roofs and duplex villa format were drawn directly from Sumbanese vernacular architecture: bedrooms above, living below, just as traditional Sumbanese houses are built. You felt like a guest of the island itself.”
At the time, the partners purchased 40 hectares of additional land, expanding the property to nearly 270 hectares of unspoilt wilderness, and growing it to 31 villas. Now, to keep up with the luxury consumer’s increasingly discerning tastes, the enterprising duo decided to give Sumba a facelift and create another luxury camp on a sister island: Nihi Rote opened
in late April this year.
What is the difference, you might ask? “If Sumba is dramatic and untamed explains McBride, “Rote is the place you go for a cappuccino on the terrace and lose track of time—think Fiji or Goa 20 years ago.”
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Architecturally, Rote features larger footprints, wider gardens, softer transitions between indoors and outdoors. Spacious, two- bedroom villas boast generous pools surrounded by flowers and gardens. To bring this vision to life, the team brought in Dara Huang of DH Liberty, who lends her signature style of contemporary elegance to Nihi’s new chapter. Huang, a Taiwanese American architect, shaped the furniture language and finishes of the new phase, creating a gentler, more garden-centric touch that “interprets [Colley’s] foundation into something brighter, cleaner and more contemporary while protecting the soul of the brand”, McBride says.
For Huang, whose projects range from luxury residences and hotels to Fulham Football Club in London, this project, and the approach it necessitated, proved unlike anything else she’d designed. Huang and her team of designers were limited to only local resources to maintain Nihi’s eco-integrity and its mission to create value and abundance for its people. While it meant all of the designs needed to be sourced and built locally, Huang and her team welcomed the challenge. Plus, she says, using indigenous materials, like those used to make traditional thatched rooftops, means they have been environmentally proven to withstand humid and hot temperatures.
Huang also decided to lean into the strengths of Indonesian craft— specifically wood carving, braiding and weaving—resulting in villas beautifully adorned in teak, and common spaces dripping in woven lanterns.
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Take the classic hand-carved wood etchings specific to Indonesian craft, for example. Huang used the same motif, but asked the local artisans she worked with to elongate the strokes, a tweak that makes the final design feel familiar but contemporary.
“So many trades that are dying in Europe, like plaster and stonework, are still more abundant in Asia, so you still get really beautifully carved doors; it’s just a matter of reinterpreting them for luxury,” she says. The floors of some dining spaces have also been left as sand to provide a more raw experience.
But, just as at Nihi Sumba, the beauty of the resort is less the polished parts within than what sits right outside its gates, and what the Nihi Foundation has helped to facilitate there. Upon arrival on the island, guests are taken straight through the jungle, past some of the 400 villages surrounding the resort, home to some of the poorest people in the poorest state in all of Indonesia; people who are still reliant on water buffalo to pull ploughs. During their stay, guests are invited to meet them, to see where the wood carvings are made and visit the school that the Sumba Foundation built for the children to attend. Over the years, the foundation has provided access to clean water and dramatically reduced malaria infections, while creating thousands of jobs for the island.
As well as opening Rote, the company started Nihi Hospitality Academy, a school within the resort itself, where 25 young men and women from Rote and Timor-Leste are learning the hotel business. “It may be one of the most powerful things we have done,” says McBride. “You are staying in a beautiful villa, surfing extraordinary waves—and watching young people grow in
real time. It creates an emotional connection that no amount of amenity can manufacture.”
As travellers have grown more exacting over the last decade, luxury hospitality has come to be defined by a world-class offering in remote destinations, with purpose-driven approaches that enhance a guest’s understanding of a place. Unlike other properties scrambling to keep up, however, Nihi is reaping the rewards of its well-founded principles.
“Seventy-three per cent of our advisors report increased demand for crowd-free travel, while 35 per cent say travellers are making more sustainable choices to reduce their carbon footprint,” says Misty Belles, luxury travel specialist at Virtuoso, an invitation-only global network of luxury travel agencies and advisors. “We are seeing this translate into growing demand for experiences that place nature, authenticity and meaningful cultural connection at the heart of the journey. As travellers are increasingly aware of their impact on the places they visit, their desire to preserve a destination’s beauty by treading more lightly also increases.”
For McBride, meeting this increased demand simply means doubling down on Nihi’s existing offerings. “Keeping up with a more demanding clientele is rarely about reinventing your backbone; it is about the detail ... You [used to need] two plugs by the bed, now you need four,” says McBride. The Nihi brand is set to expand across the globe, with Burch and McBride already having secured three locations: one in Guanacaste, Costa Rica; another in East Cape Baja, Mexico; and a third on the northeast coast of Iceland. “Our north star will always be Indonesia; that is where we began, and where our deepest focus remains,” McBride insists. “What is gratifying is that Nihi punches well above its weight globally. Two properties in remote eastern Indonesia, and yet we have captured the imagination of travellers and media worldwide. The horses on the beach, our wild wellness programmes, our philanthropy, the sheer beauty of both resorts—it all adds up to a story the world wants to hear.”
Rosana (Rosie) is the former Fashion Director for Tatler Asia. Formerly located in Hong Kong, Rosie now lives in London, UK.
