Designer, developer boldly go to court over space-age resort

Its futuristic design made it look more like a scene from a Star Trek film than a world-class resort and spa in the heart of Sai Kung.

But it was a legal dispute between the developer and the designer that destroyed the project, not an attack by the Klingons.

The Xuma Beach Resort and Spa would have been valued at more than US$420 million when complete, according to a report by international valuation experts Cushman and Wakefield issued to the developer, Hinton Enterprises, which includes former government chief architect Paul Yiu Yuen-on among its partners. But Hinton pulled out of the deal.

A legal dispute between the developer and its design consultant, Storm Associates Hong Kong, part of the Storm Signature Developments Group (Storm), has been under way since Storm's lawyers filed a writ against Hinton in the High Court on May 5.

It is a case of what might have been, as Storm's original plan was certainly out of this world.

The visitor's adventure would have begun with the journey to the resort, accessible only by helicopter, seaplane or boat. What greeted the visitor from there on was like something from another dimension.

'Prior to arriving at the resort's drop-off point, guests will be in no doubt that they are completely elsewhere, as the view of the site, with its curvilinear, sculpted forms nestled warmly into the landscape, is both a strange and almost alien one,' Storm's original proposal says.