Shangri La living suite of tobacco heiress to open

HONOLULU (AP) American tobacco heiress Doris Duke fell in love with Islamic art and culture during her honeymoon through the Middle East and Asia in 1935.

So much so that she commissioned a bedroom and bathroom inspired by the Taj Mahal, the mausoleum in India built by a 17th century emperor for his favorite wife.

The marble- and mirror-lined private living quarters will be opened to the public for the first time this weekend in Hawaii after years of extensive repairs and restoration.

Duke, who died in 1993, never explained what prompted her to build a house with architectural elements of Syria and India in the oceanfront home she built in Honolulu or to collect items such as 13th century Persian tiles.

Deborah Pope, executive director of the home that's been functioning as a museum of Islamic art since 2002, said Duke was drawn to cultures different from the elite East Coast society of her youth. She also loved things of beauty.

"I think she's an aesthete," Pope said, sitting on a red settee in Duke's bedroom.

The bedroom is located at the end of an open-air passageway extending from the main courtyard of the home that Duke called Shangri La. A perforated marble door, or jali, made by artisans in India opens to a tiled room. Light pours from more jali doors facing the ocean and garden.

The highlight, however, might be the bathroom lined with marble that's been inlaid with precious stones in the shape of tulips, anemone and other flowers.

Most of the rest of the 14,000-square-foot house, including the grand foyer and living room, have been open to the public and scholars for more than a decade. But the bedroom and bathroom called the Mughal Suite after the period when Islamic emperors ruled what is today India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh was closed while the roof was repaired.

Sugata Ray, a University of California, Berkeley professor, said the bath is important for scholars studying an early 20th century revival in Mughal arts and craft techniques.

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Shangri La living suite of tobacco heiress to open