- Bill Bensley, now 65, left the US and moved to Asia shortly after graduation.
- The architect and designer has built over 200 hotels, including three featured in the latest season of "The White Lotus."
- Bensley says he's unsure he could have built a comparable portfolio back in the US.
Some careers are shaped by chance. For Bill Bensley, it all started on graduation day in 1984, when a classmate mentioned he was moving to Singapore.
"It sounded so exotic, I asked if I could go too," he told Business Insider.
That spontaneous decision launched a forty-year architecture career in which Bensley has built over 200 hotels in 30 countries. That includes nine projects for Four Seasons hotels, one of which — Four Seasons Koh Samui — is featured in the third season of the massively popular HBO series "The White Lotus."
The odder, the better
Bensley's design mantra is simple: "The odder, the better."
His designs are known for being whimsical, theatrical, and deeply immersive.
At Cambodia's Shinta Mani Wild — a jungle retreat that opened in 2019 — Bensley and his team installed a 400-meter zipline over the jungle that transports guests to luxury tents.
At the InterContinental Khao Yai in Thailand, about 120 miles northeast of Bangkok, his team turned abandoned train carriages into hotel suites.
From farm to fame
Bensley was born in California and grew up on a small farm, raising bees, quails, and chickens and growing vegetables and mushrooms. His family spent weekends traveling in a trailer, with summer trips turning into cross-country adventures.
"I was lucky to learn how to survive in the wild," he says. "That shaped everything I do."
Bensley earned a master's in landscape architecture from California State Polytechnic University, followed by a degree in urban design from Harvard. On his graduation day in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he didn't have a job lined up. "I couldn't even fathom a career in hospitality design back then," he said.
But he followed his classmate's advice and traveled to Asia.
Competition was scarce
Soon after arriving in Singapore, Bensley landed a job with an American landscape architecture firm. His first major project was the Bali Hyatt.
At 29, he set up Bensley Studio in a Bangkok parking garage. "In 1989, there were not very many landscape architects in town," he said.
His portfolio expanded quickly, and after a few years, Bensley received an offer to design a resort in Hawaii. "The Four Seasons Hualalai was my breakthrough project on the Big Island of Hawaii," he said. Construction for the resort on the Kona-Kohala coast began in 1993.
In 2000, Bensley's company landed another commission with the company, this time to build Four Seasons Koh Samui. The site was covered with hundreds of coconut trees, some over 50 years old. "When the hotel was finished, all 856 trees were still standing," he said.
Today, that resort, featuring villas with private pools nestled into the tropical jungle overlooking the Gulf of Thailand, is in the spotlight as one of the backdrops for the third season of HBO's "The White Lotus."
He has high praise for the show's look: "Some of the garden cinematography is out of this world and looks even better than real life," he said.
Monkeys used to harvest coconuts on the site where the resort now stands.
"So the monkey statues you see in 'The White Lotus' are my designs that pay homage to the agricultural history of the island," he said.
In 2023, Mike White, the writer and director of "The White Lotus," spent time in Thailand, scouting locations and studying Thai culture. Bensley says they became friends.
Production booked the resort out for two months last year for filming.
"Mike has now filmed at three of my hotels in Southern Thailand," Bensley said, referencing the Anantara Bophut Koh Samui Resort and Anantara Mai Khao Phuket Villas.
Designs inspired by Asia
Bensley says his travels across Asia — from Thailand to Cambodia and Indonesia — have shaped his designs.
"Today, I think I understand Southeast Asia really well," Bensley said. He said that learning to speak Thai and Indonesian has helped him navigate the different cultures and communicate his design vision more effectively.
Environment plays a big role, too. Tropical locations give designers the opportunity to blur the boundary between natural landscape and architecture, said Alex Yuen, a lecturer at Harvard Graduate School of Design.
"Outside of Hawaii, where he has worked, there are not many locations in the States that would match the environment that he thrives in," Yuen told BI.
Cost is also a factor.
"Given the amount of ornaments and details found in the designs, you simply will not get that sort of deal if one were to develop properties in the US," Yuen said.
Bensley isn't sure he could have built a portfolio comparable to what he has amassed in Asia if he had stayed in the US.
"In my experience, working in the USA is so very much more restrictive and cost-focused," Bensley said.
Not slowing down
Bensley has no regrets about moving abroad. "I'm glad I made the bold move to work in Asia right after school," he said. "I'm happy with the life I've built."
Despite his packed schedule, Bensley knows how to make time for the things he loves. He paints, tends to his garden, enjoys fishing, and loves to travel. He lives in Bangkok with Jirachai Rengthong, his partner of over 35 years, and five Jack Russells.
He always travels with a sketchbook. "Sketching is the key to understanding architecture or any kind of space," he said. "If you cannot sketch it, you are not understanding it. iPhones are useless as a learning tool."
Bensley, now 65, has no plans to leave Thailand or stop working. This year alone, he's juggling over 10 new projects, with hotel openings spanning the UAE, China, Puerto Rico, Turkey, and India.
"I am never going to retire, as I have the most interesting job in the world."
