When American Tobacco heiress Doris Duke married James Cromwell, they decided to build a home in Hawaii. She commissioned Wyeth as he had worked on her father and half-brother’s estates. Duke’s home was approximately fourteen-thousand square feet and was designed in a modernist style with connecting indoor and outdoor spaces to showcase her ever-expanding Islamic art collection. In the early renderings of Shangri La, the wide staircase leading to the shoreline, along with the terraces and other sea-level structures, were never realized. Shangri La is now known as the Shangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture & Design and houses the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art.
