Photo by Janie Coltrin

The Tara Plantation living room blends modern technology with classic Hawaii style Asking price $46.5 million

Photo by Janie Coltrin

The estate boasts a bed replicated from that of Queen Liliuokalani

Photo by Janie Coltrin

Brazilian cherry floors and detailed design in the Tara Plantation kitchen

Photo by Janie Coltrin

Bask in sweet Kauai winds at the Tara Plantation estate

Is it possible to capture the essence of Tara Plantation? Ever since the estate was built on Kauai’s northeast coast, people have been searching for the words to encompass the expanse of Tara’s natural beauty and manmade riches. But all the superlatives can’t do it. They just waft out the vast doors and wide lanais of the 15,000-square-foot home. They billow over the green fields, sparkle down the stream, wash for a while in the waves of the private white-sand cove before floating out on the blue of the Pacific.

The words are gone, yet Tara stays on in its own dreamy world.

The private jet set likes the northeastern shores of Kauai. The green coast is studded with the homes of Bette Midler, Ben Stiller, Graham Nash and Michael Crichton to name a few. Yet nothing here — nor indeed in the entire state of Hawaii — comes close to Tara. Listed with Coldwell Banker Bali Hai Realty for $46.5 million, the estate sits on 174 acres and includes the main house, two 4,000-square-foot guest bungalows, a threebedroom caretaker’s cottage, tennis court, yoga studio, swimming pool and stables.

In 2005, Ultimate Homes magazine listed the estate as the ninth-most expensive property for sale in the country. The following year it had slipped to No. 19 and these days your home has to be worth more than $100 million to get on the top of that list.

Hollywood producer Peter Guber and his wife, Tara (hence the name), discovered the former ranch land in 1998. Guber then set to work producing Tara Plantation on the same grand scale as his big screen blockbusters like Midnight Express, Rain Man and Batman.

To be at Tara Plantation is to be enveloped in a shimmer of light, in the tang and susurrus of the ocean and the hush of nobody-for-miles. This is the premier plantation home. Visitors arriving at the estate travel the two-mile-long driveway past ironwoods and gentle hills and pecking chickens. A final sweeping curve in the road reveals the sparkling ocean and the main house nestled among the palms.

“You walk into the house — and it’s a huge, massive house, yet it feels gorgeous and it wraps itself around you with the furnishings and the quality of the light,” says Kailua-based architect Alwyn Trigg-Smith, who worked on the project for five years.

It was a project in which no detail was left unconsidered. The main house is sited to capture every inch of breeze, sunshine and ocean view, while the cottages are tucked away discreetly among the kamani trees.

The house has an impressive heft. The exterior walls are two feet thick to accommodate the trio of sliding glass doors, screens and wooden shutters that run the length of the home facing the ocean. Despite the structural weight, this is also a place of light and air, from the sheen of the Brazilian cherry floors to the dancing light that pours through the skylights in the double-pitch roof.

Tara invites you to stop in time and drop into one of the deep, deep sofas scattered throughout. California designer Waldo Fernandez worked closely with the Gubers to help create the Tara Plantation experience.

“It’s got all of the modern conveniences, yet you have the feeling of old Hawaii when you’re here,” says Barbara Sloan, one of the Realtors representing the property.

The ground level features a professional kitchen complete with butler’s pantry. A 2,000-square-foot great room includes a formal dining area, although the best table is a step outside on the lanai overlooking the ocean. There also is a conference room, fitness area and the children’s bedroom with adjoining nanny’s quarters.

A wide staircase leads to the second level, where you find the master suite, which is flanked by his-andhers baths and lounges rich with coconut and mahogany woods. The airy hallway leads to another private lounge and three guest room suites.

White tongue-and-groove paneling gives a crisp, sleek look to the home. The richness is in the details, from the craftsman-style detailing to the unique touches like the hefty clamshell vessel sink recovered from the old Coco Palms, and the carved four-post bed that is a replica of Queen Liliuokalani’s. Perhaps it’s when you discover the switch that augments the waterfall’s natural flow that you truly know that nothing at Tara has been left unconsidered.

Leave the main house and stroll across the great lawn past the Hanalei- green beach cabana, and you will come to a white wooden gate that opens on to Papa‘a Bay. This dreamy quarter-mile crescent of beach is visited occasionally by surfers, turtles and monk seals. But on many days the only signs of life are the mounds of sand thrown up by the sand crabs as they dig their homes into the white sand. It’s heaven.