JW Marriott Phu Quoc Emerald Bay
Text: Lu YaWen
It’s not difficult to identify the award- winning maximalist architect and designer Bill Bensley’s work anywhere in the world. In fact, it’s a lot to take in as I stand at the lobby of the decorated JW Marriott Phu Quoc Emerald Bay (it comes first on Travel+Leisure’s Top 10 Best Resorts in Southeast Asia among other accolades), a monochromactic 20th-century library with eight-metre- high ceilings and dark wood shelves filled with antique book presses, patterned tiles, marble steps, rattan plush chairs.
Bensley Studios, based in Bangkok and Bali, has never shied away from the “More is More” ethos. Having done countless properties for luxury hotels in Southeast Asia, he offers a flavour of opulence vastly different from the bare industrialist or Scandi minimalist. And the immersive conceptualisation of JW Marriott that opened in 2016 on Phu Quoc, an island off Vietnam roughly the size of Singapore, might be the most surreal yet.
BACK TO SCHOOL
We’re introduced to Lamarck University, the foundation on which the hotel has been built. Named after the French naturalist Jean Baptiste Lamarck, it has a striking mascot: the Phu Quoc ridgeback dog. The lobby leads to the Hall of Fame walkway, where framed sports memorabilia, such as weathered photos of boys posing on the field, antique tennis rackets, and worn baseball gloves are displayed. As our guide gestures to the wall, these are the teams from other schools that Lamarck has beaten at interschool competitions.
The sprawling 10,000 sq m grounds hug the island’s eastern coastline with nine types of rooms and suites housed in colourfully painted buildings named after faculty departments. There are three pools (one is adults-only), four F&B options, including a fine-dining restaurant called the Pink Pearl, meeting and ballrooms, a 24-hour gym, and a spa. This part of Khem Beach is private and reserved for hotel guests.
My mind was clouded with fatigue from an eight-hour and two-flight journey from Singapore (during my visit in November, there were no direct flights yet), and I almost believed the spiel. It’s adequately convincing with the keepsakes — a staggering 5,000 antiques and knickknacks found from scouring flea markets all over Europe — to prove it. I check in with the team the following day as we conduct a proper introductory compound tour. “This is all fictional, right?”
A TALE OF URBANISATION
Alas, just like the themed towns that have sprouted up over the island in the past eight years, the historic walls of Lamarck University are all but made up. The resort is backed by Vietnam’s real estate behemoth, Sun Group, who’s also behind the world’s longest Hon Thom Cable Car, Mediterranean-inspired Sunset Town a 10-minute car ride away and its main attraction, the Kiss of the Sea water and light show with a five- minute fireworks finale.
Outside the hotel are empty buildings fashioned after the vaguely European colonial architecture on the property, mirroring the seemingly empty Italian houses in Sunset Town. Built before the pandemic, Covid-19 brought the island’s ambitious development plans to a standstill (the Vietnamese government had plans to turn the island into a Special Economic Zone), and even now, a few years later, Phu Quoc is taking a little more time to woo back tourists and businesses.
Once famed for its soft sandy beaches and clear waters, Phu Quoc, known to locals as Pearl Paradise Island, has rapidly expanded its offerings and become a buffet of kitschy experiences and photo opportunities for tourists.
A SPRINKLE OF MAKE-BELIEVE
Away from the buses of tourists, the rest of the island runs at a slower pace. There are glimpses of Phu Quoc before the developers moved in: forested mountain ridges (called 99 Peaks by locals), fishing ports, and small independent producers such as a family-owned bee farm. In fact, the island has a protected national park that’s strangely underutilised for ecotourism and two marine protected areas.
In 2024, Travel+Leisure magazine named Phu Quoc the second-best island in the world after the Maldives. It’s a bit of a stretch to compare the two, with the former lacking a thriving sea life and dealing with trash disposal issues, but perhaps the beauty of the remaining nature on Pearl Paradise Island comes second for the tourists who visit. Like Bill Bensley himself, who has mentioned he gets bored at beach resorts, visitors here have the fully-fleshed Lamarck University universe to further their sense of escapism.
Walking from the Department of Conchology & Botany, where I’m housed, on a quiet leafy pathway with the odd maintenance staff trimming the greenery, the sunlight streaming through the leaves, rustling from a gentle sea breeze, the grounds do look spectacular despite being manmade. And for those few minutes, I soak in the serenity before finding myself thrust into the intergenerational chaos of a buffet breakfast.
(Images via JW Marriott Phu Quoc Emerald Bay.)
