ISLAND HIDEAWAY PRISTINE AND PRIVATE, ISLAND OF LANAI IS STILL AS SWEET AS ITS PINEAPPLE.

Byline: Story and photos by Eric Noland Travel Editor

LANAI CITY, Hawaii - You gain a greater appreciation for the Hawaiian island of Lanai about the instant you leave it.

When the ferry drops you in Maui's bustling town of Lahaina, you pick your way through the crowds that clog the sidewalks of Front Street, then fight through the traffic jams on Honoapiilani Highway, where road-repair trucks play dodge ball with sub-compact rental cars. And what's this up ahead ... a stoplight?

Oh, to be back on that island that lies just nine miles west across the Auau Channel. Lanai, the third-smallest of Hawaii's eight islands, protrudes from the sea at 141 square miles, yet has only 3,000 permanent residents, 30 miles of paved roads and 363 hotel rooms. You do the math.

Only a tiny fraction of the island is developed, which means delicious seclusion for any visitor who seeks it. If you find Hawaii's high-rises and caravans of motor coaches slightly depressing, Lanai offers the opportunity for four-wheel-drive explorations of Shipwreck Beach and Mount Lanaihale, solitary hikes to spectacular overlooks - and even a few holes of golf in an other-worldly landscape.

This trip doesn't come cheap if you opt for either of the luxury resorts that went in about 10 years ago. At the ocean-front Manele Bay Hotel, rooms start at $350 per night, and if you want something fronting the sea, it climbs to $600. Inland, at the stately Lodge at Koele, rooms start at $375 nightly, with mini suites going for $700.

But solitude has its price. That's probably why this island has become such a popular destination for those splurging on a wedding, honeymoon, 25th wedding anniversary, retirement celebration - or even an I-earned-this retreat following a particularly brutal stretch of work.

First-time visitors to Lanai - at least those enchanted by the lush, tropical beauty of other Hawaiian islands - might be in for a bit of a shock. This island is tucked snugly into the lee of Maui's twin peaks, Haleakala and Puu Kukui, such that Maui waylays and expends most of the tropical storms before they can get here.

Lanai registers only about 40 inches of annual rainfall on its east side (a fraction of what slams into other islands in the chain) and barely gets into double digits on its west side.

This might account for Lanai's arrested development over the years.

Ancient Hawaiians believed the island was inhabited by evil spirits, and it came to be known as the Forbidden Isle. In the late 18th century, seafarers probing the archipelago found this island desolate and uninviting for settlement. It was used later for ranching, with minimal success.

Then, in the early 20th century, James D. Dole bought the entire island for $1.1 million and harnessed it for pineapple farming. The plantation would become a vast one, ultimately earning the island a new nickname, the Pineapple Isle.

In the 1980s, tycoon David Murdock acquired a major chunk of Castle & Cooke, the Dole Food Co.'s parent company, and began to guide Lanai in a new direction. Asian markets were undercutting Hawaii's pineapple production. And in an era of escalating stress in white-collar occupations, the resort industry was recognizing a growing demand for away-from-it-all options. Preferably ones in regions that are perpetually warm, sunny and dry.

Murdock swapped pineapples for reclusive tourists, opening the Lodge at Koele in 1990 and the Manele Bay Hotel a year later. The capital outlays, much of it for island infrastructure, were staggering. The cost of operation remains steep in so isolated a locale. According to several reports, the red ink is being stored in drums. But the island's niche market would seem to hold promise.

It certainly didn't hurt matters when Microsoft chairman Bill Gates chose Lanai for the site of his wedding on New Year's Day 1994. Then worth a paltry $7 billion, Gates was so determined to maintain privacy for the event, he essentially rented the entire island - booking every hotel room and campsite on Lanai, reserving nearly every rental car (he overlooked two jeeps), and hiring and grounding every helicopter on Maui.

Gates chose as the site of the sunset ceremony the 12th tee of Manele Bay's Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course. It's an over-water hole, wrapped around a precipitous bluff above the Pacific. This choice was understandable enough - most visitors to Hawaii can't get enough of the view of an ocean that is dazzlingly blue here just under the Tropic of Cancer.

That is what makes the location of the Lodge at Koele so intriguing, if not daring. It not only doesn't have ocean-front rooms, you can't even see the ocean from its roof. It lies nine miles inland of the ferry dock, at the very center of the island, on the edge of the pineapple company town of Lanai City.

It's new, but was constructed to look like a 19th-century manor home - the kind of place a plantation lord might have built as a monument to his wealth and station. It has a Great Hall with a 35-foot ceiling and stone fireplaces, a library with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, a music room, a grand porch.

It brings to mind the mansion built by Wild Whip Hoxworth in James Michener's epic novel, ``Hawaii,'' after Hoxworth carved out a pineapple plantation on remote Kauai. The ``magnificent house'' of fiction was said to have been built of massive timbers and surrounded by exotic gardens, just as this is.

Even the hotel's recreational offerings suggest aristocratic amusements: croquet and lawn bowling, clay-pigeon shooting, horseback riding, even an 18-hole putting green.

The lodge sits at about 1,700 feet next to a grove of Norfolk pines (planted in the early 1900s to catch fog drip and enhance the island's precious groundwater reserves). It can get chilly at that elevation, which accounts for the preponderance of fireplaces in the lodge and extra blankets in the guest rooms. Doesn't sound much like traditional Hawaii tourist lodgings, does it?

``There are people who like the tropics but don't like being real warm,'' spokeswoman Gigi Valley said over lunch in a terrace restaurant that overlooks a lake, hillside gardens and a thick forest. ``The beach is only 15 minutes away, but this is totally different. In Hawaii, there are not any other places like this.''

The lodge's isolation is evident when you embark on the Koloiki Ridge Trail. After crossing the golf course, you're in wilderness within a few steps, wandering along dirt tracks through pine forests, red-dirt gulches and Lanai's trademark scrubby terrain. The real payoff of the five-mile loop hike is a sensational overlook from which the islands of Molokai and Maui can be seen in the distance.

For visitors who seek a more traditional resort experience, there is the Manele Bay Hotel. It sits on a slope above beautiful Hulopoe Beach and is constructed in a style that has become the beach-front standard in Hawaii - a tiered, open-air lobby that opens onto a sprawling pool area, with the ocean visible just beyond.

The hotel's neighboring terrain is parched and uninviting, but in that regard this resort is not unlike other temples of sun worship found on the Big Island (Kohala Coast) and Maui (Wailea, Makena). The Manele Bay has also followed form by laying in a lush and colorful (if not particularly natural) tropical world on its grounds. This includes waterfalls, ponds, shady palms, cascades of bright-colored bougainvillea, and theme gardens, including one cleverly devoted to bromeliads - various flowering relatives of the pineapple.

The birds seem to have moved in and embraced the new look; their songs will likely be the first thing to greet you in the morning. (To encourage their presence, the hotel has constructed bird houses at various points between the hotel and the coastal bluffs.) The area is also popular with Monarch butterflies.

Beach bums will exult in the hotel's positioning. It is at the west edge of Hulopoe Beach, a lovely scallop of sand and clear, blue water. This is the place to decompress with a book under one of the hotel's canvas umbrellas, occasionally cooling off with a dip in the ocean.

The beach is graced with a fascinating shelf of tide pools along its east edge. There are hundreds of natural bowls here, many teeming with tiny tropical fish that dart for cover when your shadow approaches. You can see entire schools in some of the larger pools. The surf pounds toward this shelf, but is enfeebled the instant it strikes the edge of the lava field. The footing is excellent, but rubber-soled shoes are a must (sneakers, water socks, reef sandals) because the surface is rough and jagged.

Another view of marine life can be achieved in the cove itself, which is an excellent snorkel spot. A coral bed stretches into the cove from left to right on about a 45-degree angle (as you face the water), and with a depth of 10 to 15 feet, this is like being in an aquarium tank.

You don't have to stay on Lanai to enjoy this beach. A ferry runs from Lahaina to Manele Bay five times a day ($50 round trip for adults). From the dock, walk up the harbor road to a ``Y,'' take the left fork (a blue-and-white sign says ``Shoreline Access'') and walk a couple hundred yards to the beach. There is a pristine beach park here, with restrooms and picnic tables, some under shady trees.

Bring your own lunch, though. There are drawbacks to savoring the remoteness of the Manele Bay Hotel, whether as guest or visitor: You're a captive audience at meal time. During the day, that means breakfast at the terrace restaurant and lunch at either the poolside grill or the golf course. (At dinner, the terrace restaurant serves an impressive array of fresh-fish items, with main courses priced from $17 to $30; at the elegant Ihilani, meanwhile, cuisine described as Mediterranean French gourmet is beyond the reach of all but the most liberal budgets.)

One of the real delights of a Hawaii visit, however - especially at breakfast and lunch - is to find the out-of-the way cafes and casual locals hangouts in towns such as Paia, Hanalei and Haleiwa. To track one down in Lanai, you just have to work a little harder and travel a little farther.

For resort guests, a complimentary shuttle runs regularly between the Manele Bay Hotel and the Lodge at Koele, with a stop in Lanai City. Day-trippers can make the same trip for $10 each way on shuttles that meet the ferry boats at Manele Bay.

Lanai City looks like a company town that still has its sleeves rolled up, even though Murdock urged a beautification program to at least get some fresh coats of paint on the clapboard, plantation-style houses, some of which date to the 1920s. Here, you'll find front yards overtaken by colorful flower gardens, Japanese glass fishing balls hanging from porches, chickens poking around in front yards.

You'll also find the Blue Ginger Cafe, where the red paint on the concrete floor has nearly been scuffed off. A hearty breakfast for two here will cost $11.90, and will fortify you for an exploration of the interior.

Lanai City also has the island's only modestly priced accommodations. The Hotel Lanai, which James Dole had built to house visiting company executives and other guests, features 10 rooms priced in the $100 range and a cottage (formerly the caretaker's quarters) that rents for $140. The rooms are appointed to reflect plantation life (at least for those who owned the plantation), including handmade quilts on the beds.

It is here that you get a sense of Lanai's transition from island-wide commercial farm to an enterprise of tourism cultivation. We were shown around by hotel manager Mei Li Akana, who said her mother was the housekeeper of the inn when the plantation bosses lived here.

Lanai seems to have made a smooth transition, and figures to maintain its appeal to world-weary travelers. You're persuaded of that on the return ride to Manele Bay across the Palawai Basin. Pull up to an intersection. Look left. See nothing but a cow grazing perhaps four miles off.

Later, at night at the Manele Bay Hotel, it is blissfully still. And dark. Low-level lighting is employed throughout the grounds, and on an island of so little development, the night sky is a rich exhibit of stars.

As you drift off to sleep, you might permit yourself a smile at the thought of cars stacked up at a light at Lahaina's Dickenson Street, or of the wharf area choked with people, noise, music and bright light.

Lanai is nine miles of ocean and a world removed from that.

IF YOU GO

GETTING THERE: Hawaiian Airlines and Island Air serve Lanai on an inter-island basis, but the most popular way to reach the island is probably by ferry from the Maui town of Lahaina. There are five departures each way daily. Fare is $25 each way per adult, $20 for kids ages 2 to 11. It is operated by Expeditions; [phone]. Be prepared for a slow ride - the distance to Lanai is only nine miles, but the ferry ride, which advertises 45 minutes, took closer to an hour. The scenery's great, though; several humpback whales were spotted in late February. To park a vehicle in Lahaina for a stay on Lanai, try the long-term lot behind the historic Baldwin House (Dickenson Street between Front and Luakini streets). It's $10 for 24 hours. A pay machine takes bills up to $10 and issues tickets that you line up on your dashboard. For a day trip, either ride the ferry over (Hulopoe Beach is within walking distance of the landing) or shop around for an operator that offers snorkel or beach excursions.

GETTING AROUND: Shuttles operated by Lanai City Service meet the ferries. The one-way fare for a ride to Lanai City at the center of the island is $10. Guests of the Manele Bay Hotel, which is adjacent to the dock, must pay $5 for a shuttle ride that lasts about five minutes - quite a gouge by the local business folk. Thereafter, shuttle service between the resorts is free for guests. Lanai City Service also operates a Dollar car-rental agency, with four-wheel-drive vehicles available; [phone] or [phone].

ACTIVITIES:

--Rugged roads lead to two remote beaches on Lanai - Shipwreck on the northeast coast, Polihua on the northwest. Aptly named Shipwreck Beach (a couple of rusting hulks are still stuck on the shallow reef) is an eight- mile drive from Lanai City. Snorkeling here is not advised because of shark danger. Polihua is a beautiful, untracked beach 11 miles from Lanai City. These roads are little-traveled, so it's advisable to carry food and water in the event of a breakdown. The island measures only 18 miles by 13 miles, so at worst you'll just have a bit of a hike on your hands.

--The concierge at the Lodge at Koele can provide a map for the five-mile Koloiki Ridge Trail, which leads to an impressive overlook of Maui and Molokai. Several trails and jeep roads crisscross it, but orange posts mark the route.

--The golf is superb on this island. In its recent rankings of golf resorts, Conde Nast Traveler magazine ranked the Manele Bay course (designed by Jack Nicklaus) the third best in North America, the Koele course (co-designed by Greg Norman) the eighth best. The signature hole at the latter course is No. 8, which features a 250-foot drop in elevation from tee box to green.

--The Manele Bay Hotel features a Fisherman Coastal Trail along the bluff, but sturdy shoes are a must, as it is extraordinarily rocky.

--The snorkeling is excellent at Hulopoe Beach, which is adjacent to the Manele Bay Hotel. If you want to observe marine life without getting wet, simply visit the tide pools on the eastern edge of the cove.

INFORMATION: Destination Lanai provides tourist information about the island; [phone] or [phone], www.visitlanai.net. Resorts reservations and information: [phone]; www.lanai-resorts.com. The Maui Visitors Bureau can also provide some information on Lanai; [phone] or [phone], www.visitmaui.com.

CAPTION(S):

9 photos, box, map

Photo: (1 -- color) Serenity is issued with the room key at the Manale Bay Hotel on Lanai. The pool area overlooks idyllic Hulopoe Beach, a nice spot for sunning, swimming, or walking. There isn't much danger of rain spoiling your vacation here. Lanai is much drier than its Hawaiian island cousins, and Manele Bay barely gets to double digits in annual rainfall.

(2 -- color) Lanai, a former pineapple plantation that is minimally developed, is an island of wide open spaces, and nowhere is it more evident than on the Koloiki Ridge Trail. The payoff for a hike here is a sweeping overlook that takes in the neighboring islands of Molokai and Maui.

(3 -- 4) Lanai's Hulopoe Beach, above, is popular with snorkelers and beachcombers. Lanai gets only a fraction of the tourist traffic that most of the other Hawaiian islands experience. At left, the Koloiki Trail, which winds into the hills near the Lodge at Koele on Lanai, treats its travelers to an ever-changing landscape - none of it showing signs of human habitation.

(5) Besides golf, the Lodge at Koele offers a number of mild recreations on its lush grounds, including croquet.

(6) The golf course at the Lodge at Koele, which was co-designed by Greg Norman, takes players into forests of Norfolk pines. The course's signature hole is No. 8, which features a 250-foot elevation drop from tee to green.

(7) The Great Hall at Lanai's Lodge at Koele has the feel of a manor home, with 35-foot ceilings and massive stone fireplaces.

(8) The Hotel Lanai, in the center of the island, was built to house visiting company executives during the heyday of the pineapple plantation.

(9) Along the eastern edge of Hulopoe Beach is a lava shelf with numerous tide pools. It is directly across the cove from the Manele Bay Hotel, where, without getting wet, visitors can observe marine life, such as tiny tropical fish darting around.

Box: If you go (see text) Map: no caption (Hawaiian Islands, with Lanai highlighted)