Shangri La

As florist to the late tobacco heiress Doris Duke, Michael Miya­shiro of Rainforest remembers filling the Mughal Suite, her private bedroom and bath at Shangri La, with nothing but white flowers.

"It had to do with something spiritual," he said. "She was very into that aspect of Hindu culture and thought of white as an absolutely pure color that pairs with the soul and intellect. She was immersed in that culture, so when you walked into the room, it was like you were in India.

"The house was always open to friends and guests, and even when she wasn’t there, we never strayed from her demand."

The Mughal Suite — sans flowers — was put on display this weekend for the first time since Shangri La, Duke’s Black Point residence, opened to the public.

"People have been dying to get in here since we opened the property in 2002," said Debo­rah Pope, Shangri La executive director.

Now everyone will have the opportunity to step into Duke’s private sanctuary with the long-awaited unveiling of the suite.

Duke, who was born in New York on Nov. 22, 1912, became renowned as "the world’s richest girl" when her father, tobacco tycoon James Buchanan Duke, died in 1925, leaving his only daughter with an estimated $60 million to $100 million fortune. Her 1935 honeymoon with James Cromwell introduced her to Mughal India and the Islamic world, sparking a lasting love for the art and architecture of those cultures.

The Mughal Empire ruled most of India and Paki­stan from the 16th to 18th centuries. The dynasty grew out of descendants of the Mongol Empire who assimilated the Muslim culture of the Middle East while retaining their Far Eastern roots, introducing Persian art, culture and architecture to predominately Hindu India. At the pinnacle of Mughal architecture is the Taj Mahal, commissioned by emperor Shah Jahan as a mausoleum upon the death of his favorite wife, Mumtaz.

Cromwell, in a letter to his mother, noted in 1935 that his bride "had fallen in love with the Taj Mahal and all the beautiful marble tile, with their lovely floral designs with some precious stones."

Duke immediately commissioned a marble bedroom-and-bathroom suite to be incorporated into a home the couple was building in Palm Beach, Fla., but when their last stop in Hawaii was extended from two weeks to four months, there was a change of plans. After deciding she could not live anywhere else, Duke had the suite shipped here, where she was determined to build a house around it.

"That’s why it’s so different from the rest of the house in every way," said Pope. "You don’t see India anyplace else in the home."

The intimate quarters proved to be the best showcase for the small-scale objets d’art and jewelry from India that fill display cases and vitrines.

From floors to ceilings, the Mughal Suite incorporates Mughal-inspired art and architecture through the use of carved marble, jali (perforated screens) and inlaid semiprecious stonework created by craftsmen in Agra, northern India.

Adjoining the bedroom suite is a dressing room with a vaulted ceiling of plasterwork inset with diamond-, starburst- and circle-patterned mirrors, inspired by mirrored ceilings Duke saw in India and Iran.

Natural light floods the room through the jalis and Mughal patterns cut into the marble walls.

"She paid a lot of attention to light," said Pope, who described a 1947 article in Town & Country magazine in which Duke spoke of the lighting giving the suite "an Arabian Nights transformative feel."

Construction on Shangri La started in 1936 and ended in 1938, but Duke continued to collect, commission and incorporate Islamic art into the property for the rest of her life. When she realized the use and value of her estate could benefit the public, she modified her will in 1965 to allow the home to be open to the public for the study of Islamic art and culture.

Duke fell ill and died at her Beverly Hills home, Falcon’s Lair, in October 1993, unleashing a tabloid scandal suggesting her death came at the hands of a scheming doctor and gold-digging butler.

Between that time and the settling of her estate, the home fell into disrepair, and work proceeded slowly until Shangri La could be opened for public tours in 2002. The Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art, which owns and supports Shangri La, made every effort to keep the site maintained as the home Duke knew rather than as a traditional museum.

Photographs dating to 1938 provided the blueprint for restoring the suite to the way it looked when it was first completed. The original paint schemes were uncovered through microscopic examination of small samples of paint cut from the walls. Red velvet divans, mother-of-pearl furniture, pierced metal hanging lamps from Syria, Indian textiles, manuscript paintings, jades and jewelry, and ancient glass from Iran and Syria further re-create the look of the room as originally conceived.

It was not an easy task due to the corrosive action of salt air on iron clamps that failed, jamming pocket jali doors and windows and in some cases causing the marble to buckle.

The work took place gradually beginning with roof repairs that needed immediate attention. Pope said there were some hair-pulling moments when they had to dismantle the Jali Pavilion, with its 500-pound marble structures, that stood above the suite, in order to reach the leaking roof substrate.

Kent Severson, Shangri La art conservator, said, "One of my professors once told me that the way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time, and this was a really big bite."

He said the good part of having to figure out the puzzle is they now know more about the construction of the walls and jalis, and how to set the jalis’ bronze bug screens, for future repairs.

Standing inside the suite, Pope said, "I feel like I’m seeing what it looked like when it was first completed, and I’m really happy with it. When staff and visitors say, ‘Wow!’ I go, ‘Yeah!’ It’s been a long time coming."

At this point the only space not open to the public is a room adjacent to the bedroom that once served as Duke’s private study. It once housed her desk, piano and music recordings. There’s no timeline for its opening.