We peek behind the scenes with Bill at Baan Botanica, his home and amazing tropical garden, and also at play in his studio, the former Iraqi Embassy, where over a hundred designers happily work through the myriad of steps that it takes to make some of the world's best hotels.

1. Bensley - Bangkok

Lifestyle

Travel

Designing Paradise takes viewers into the extraordinary world of Bill Bensley, one of hospitality design's most visionary minds.

Designing Paradise with Bill Bensley

Series 1

Designing Paradise takes viewers into the extraordinary world of Bill Bensley.

The British Soap Awards 2025

The nation's beloved soaps are celebrated and honoured. Who will win Best British Soap?

Jane McDonald returns to host the annual award ceremony at London's Hackney Empire.

Unwind with STV

Your daily escape designed to calm the mind and encourage relaxation and reflection.

In the name of recycling, Bonkers Bensley scoured the world's markets for 2+ years collecting historically correct antiquities to renovate the 1898 hill station of Auguste Pavie, the first Governor-General of the French Protectorate of Laos.

2. Rosewood - Loas

It's a little known fact that Holland invaded Bali on numerous occasions but were thwarted every time. Bensley's newest hotel is a tongue in cheek acknowledgement of the Dutch blunders. But is it too strange?

3. Capella Ubud -  Bali

Bensley claims that the future of super high end travel is about providing experiences and 100% private outdoor garden spaces for guests to enjoy as they like. Bensley's tiny noteworthy hotel offers both, while also helping the local community.

4. Shinta Mani - Cambodia

On the sparsely populated tropical island off the coast of Cambodia, Bensley has reconstructed and renovated the Lamarck University grounds into Asia's most unique resort.
This vast project has taken 5 years of planning. Based on the original university's footprint, Bill creates landscape gardens with supersized monuments.

5. Lamarck University - Vietnam

Bensley is bonkers about saving each and every one of the 854 coconut trees that occupy this pristine bay in Koh Samui, Thailand. In the end, coconuts penetrate in the most amusing ways and in all aspects of the resort.

6. Four Seasons - Koh Samui 

Located just off the Mekong in the Golden Triangle of opium fame, Bonkers Bensley has set up camp for the most expensive Four Seasons, a home to a maximum of 30 happy campers and 26 very lucky relocated street elephants set free in the resort's wild country. 

7. The Elephant Camp - Chiang Rai

Tran Nhan was an intelligent king in the 13th century. Yen Tu Mountain, his last resting place, attracts millions of Buddhist pilgrims yearly. Bensley implemented a huge master plan that resulted in the visual harmony and simplicity of the 13th century.

8. Yen Tu - Vietnam

Rajasthan is not the easiest place in India to build a five star palace. Bensley struggles but sticks to his unique DNA methods and works with the strengths of the local craftsmen to create one of the world's most treasured accommodations. But will you love the results?   

9. Rajasthan Palace - India

Shrouded in clouds and perched in one of the highest colonial hill stations in Indochina, Bensley has designed from scratch the Hotel de la Coupole of chaotic Sapa, Vietnam. He explores the relationship of the fashions of the indigenous hill tribes juxtaposed with those of the haute couture in 1900's Paris.

10. Hotel de la Coupole - Vietnam

Aptly named as The Slate, one of Bensley's first creations is a beach resort like no other. This Tin Mine themed resort offers brutal iron and concrete décor along with cutlery that looks more like a box of spanners. 

11. The Slate - Phuket

Bensley designed this Asian classic hotel, Four Seasons Chiang Mai, in 1992 and since then has been employed as the visual policeman to maintain and renovate. This episode catches Bonkers planning the latest batch of renovations, and he also visits his favorite local cache of antiquities.

12. Antique Hunting - Chiang Mai

The pressures of growing populations surrounding the Cardamon National Park to continue poaching wildlife presents Bensley with the most challenging project of his life. How does he find the compromise between hungry locals and the staunch conservationists? 
Forbes Magazine writes that the Shinta Mani Wild Bensley Collection is the most anticipated hotel opening of 2019, but can Bonkers deliver?