Doris Duke's Shangri La

Doris S H A N G R I L A  Duke’s  Shangri La In the late 1930s, heiress Doris Duke built Shangri La, her Honolulu home, on five acres of property overlooking the Pacific Ocean and Diamond Head. Shangri La incorporates architectural features from throughout the Islamic world and houses Duke’s extensive collection of Islamic art. Collecting and living with Islamic art became a lifelong creative endeavor, one that Duke sustained and that in many ways sustained her for nearly sixty years. One of Hawai‘i’s most architecturally significant houses, Shangri La was also the most private of homes, a retreat and sanctuary for a woman who valued privacy above all else. Hidden from view by a high sea wall and tropical vegetation, Shangri La and Duke’s passion for collecting Islamic art were known to only a few. In her will, Duke herself set in motion plans to open Shangri La to the public as a place for the study of Islamic art and culture. Published to coincide with the opening, this book introduces Shangri La: the house, the gardens, the collections of Islamic art. It also offers a glimpse of the person behind the public image of “wealthy heiress”: an independent woman with an adventurous spirit, a deep interest in other cultures, and the imagination and discipline to envision and create Shangri La. Sharon Littlefield, curator of Shangri La, has been working with the collections of Islamic art since 1999. She served as curator of the permanent exhibition Arts of the Islamic World at the Honolulu Academy of Arts in 2002. She