Khao Lak, on the eleven-kilometre beach north of Phuket, built by Kate and Andrew Kemp and finished but not yet open when the Indian Ocean tsunami of 26 December 2004 struck the coast, by the house’s account ten days before its doors were due to open. The Kemps rebuilt rather than abandoned it and opened on 7 October 2005 with fifty-six guest residences in seven two-storey buildings set in ten acres of garden. It is this Library’s case of a house that treated a coastline’s recovery as its own ledger.
The house
Kate and Andrew Kemp chose Khao Lak, a stretch of Phang Nga coast north of Phuket, and built a resort of fifty-six residences in seven separate two-storey buildings within ten acres of tropical garden, none of it rising to dominate the planting. The house was complete and unopened on 26 December 2004. Its own account records that the wave “struck the region just 10 days before The Sarojin was due to open”, and that afterwards “the couple knew they had to help Khao Lak recover”. The Sarojin states that it “was the first employer to bring back its 100 staff”, which made the unopened hotel a payroll before it was a business.
The house opened on 7 October 2005. Fifty-three of its staff had a guest residence named after each of them, a decision the Kemps took at opening and which the house still reports. A Community Fund established in 2004 carried the post-tsunami work: restoring the fishing fleet, childcare support, rebuilding schools and welfare projects. The Kemps remain the owners. The resort closed during the pandemic and reopened on 25 February 2021 with all fifty-six residences, each with its own separate entrance. In 2022 it launched One Booking One Tree, planting a mangrove or sea-almond for every booking, and it marked twenty years in October 2025.
What distinguishes it
The house was finished before it was struck, and struck before it was open The Sarojin’s own account places the Boxing Day wave of 26 December 2004 “just 10 days before The Sarojin was due to open”. There were no guests to evacuate and no trading history to fall back on. The loss was of a completed building and of the coast it had been built for.
The staff were rehired before the hotel existed The house states that it “was the first employer to bring back its 100 staff”, which it did in the period between the wave and its opening in October 2005. A hotel that had never taken a booking was therefore carrying a hundred wages. The Kemps’ Community Fund, established in 2004, paid for fishing-fleet restoration, childcare support, school rebuilding and welfare projects on the same coast.
Fifty-three people are named on the doors The Kemps named a guest residence after each of fifty-three staff members, and the house still records this as part of its account of 2005. It is a permanent register of who returned to work, fixed to the building rather than to a plaque. Against fifty-six residences in total, almost every door carries a name.
The garden, not the architecture, does the separating Fifty-six residences sit in seven separate two-storey buildings “intimately set within 10 acres of lush tropical gardens”. The categories are twenty-eight Garden Residences of 95 square metres, fourteen Pool Residences of 120 and fourteen Jacuzzi Pool Suites of 150, with a two-bedroom combination of 215 made by opening an internal door between two of them. Low buildings and dense planting are the privacy mechanism; height and distance are not used.
The recovery work did not stop when the recovery did The Community Fund of 2004 still runs, now funded in part by twice-weekly community yoga classes and supported by monthly volunteer days for guests and staff. In 2022 the house launched One Booking One Tree, pledging a mangrove or sea-almond tree for every booking, which won a Responsible Thailand Award for Green Steps. The house also reports that it has “completely eliminated single-use plastics from the resort” using an in-house water-bottling plant.
Khao Lak is a long beach with no resort town attached to it, and the house is deliberately low, planted and quiet; a guest wanting height, a view over the bay from a tower, or nightlife within walking distance should not come. Fifty-six residences in seven buildings share one garden, so the scale is neither a private island nor a grand hotel. A guest who would prefer the 2004 wave not to be mentioned has chosen a house that dates its own founding by it.
Signature rooms and dates
Competitive landscape
Sources
What the entry rests on, read 13 October 2026. Each reference records the facts it supports, so a disputed line can be traced to the account it came from.