Hawaii 5-Whoa: The Resort for the .01 Percent Where Ivanka and Jared Are Spending New Year’s



Jared Kushner’s abs are nice. We know because of the latest pictures of Ivanka Trump and her husband on vacation.

Ivanka and Jared could have chosen anywhere in the world to bask in victory and get some downtime after the extraordinary crush of the last year and a half. They chose to shlep in economy class (as we learned after some a**hole harassed them on the first leg of their trip) for a vacation in Hawaii.

If you’re under the age of 60 and you spent a few days here, you’d probably be saying F*** Palm Beach as well. Gorgeous weather. No humidity. No bugs. Whales. Surf. Snow-capped volcanoes. And lots of self-made ass-kickers to hang with. Pretty different than the odd, boozy, stiffness of high-end Florida.

The family selected a resort called Hualalai on the big island. The closest airport is Kona, which has a terminal with shady porch type structures called lanais that are open to the elements. You can fly there commercial, but the tarmac is littered with large private jets, dozens of them. More Gulfstreams than you’ve ever seen assembled in a single place. Over the holidays the place makes the private airport at Teterboro, which serves New York City, look like a small outpost for the fractional ownership set.

Hualalai combines a Four Seasons hotel and expensive private homes set around a golf course with views of the ocean. The main resort has a sort of 1990s grey paint job and is popular with agents from LA. It’s also a nice place for families; with outdoor movie nights and big virgin cocktails. Throw in a few plastic surgery cases (the large C-cup seems popular these days) and you’ve got something pretty fun. The beach is gorgeous, but not really for swimming. Rooms during the holidays start at about $1000 a night. It’s deluxe for sure, but not over-the-top. The kind of place you feel comfortable walking around in a bikini or with your shirt off (thank you Jared).

Some of the private homes are worth tens of millions of dollars and owned by guys like Charles Schwab, of the eponymous stock brokerage, and George Roberts, the co-founder of private equity firm KKR. We hope the Trump-Kushners are in one of these places. The views can be spectacular and it’s a lot easier to spend a little time away from folks giddy about the future first family, as well as Jared’s lean bod.

The eco-system around Hualalai includes a much higher-end development next-door called Kukio, where Michael Dell’s beachfront house is worth $100-millon plus. Kukio is a short walk away and kind of makes the lovely Hualalai seem a bit like West Palm Beach. Still, Hualalai is away from the political press and the line of people trying to get in on the action of the new administration. And Hawaii rocks.

Commercial travel and regular vacations are going to be tough for this young family over the next four years. But maybe they’ll make a point of trips like this. They have spectacular wealth, but they’re not hiding behind giant private gates, or doing massively avant garde stuff. Some people will appreciate the gesture and the nod to appropriate behavior.

We’ll leave the critiques for another day, and other outlets. The images of Ivanka and her family are starting to become more important for the country.  Even for people who don’t like Trumps, or their politics, it’s all kind of aspirational. Pretty darn perfect sometimes.

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