Hook Island's eco-lodge: 39 cabins for a Whitsunday island closed for over a decade

Hook Island covers 58 square kilometres of forest and secluded beaches in the Whitsundays, inside the Great Barrier Reef. For more than a decade nobody has stayed there. The old resort was left badly damaged by cyclones, and in 2022 Epochal Hotels chief executive Glenn Piper and a small group of investors bought the leasehold with a plan to rebuild it.

That plan is now an approved project. In February 2026 Epochal announced a new $2.4 million jetty was complete and that development approval had been secured. The lodge is forecast to open in 2027.

What is planned

The lease covers 9.3 hectares. On it, Epochal plans 39 cabins across six accommodation types, set in the forest and along the beachfront. ABC News reported capacity for 118 overnight guests and 280 people in all, counting day visitors.

The design is by Luxury Frontiers, the firm behind Nayara Tented Camp in Costa Rica and Naviva, a Four Seasons Resort in Mexico. Its brief here is what Epochal calls barefoot luxury: cyclone-resistant modular buildings placed around a tree survey, so the native plants stay where they are.

Where guests will spend the day

Two restaurants lead the plans. A Beach Club with an all-day restaurant, a bar, a fire pit and a pool deck looks over Hook Passage, and a fine-dining restaurant sits on a clifftop above Stingray Bay. Around them are a forest spa and eco pool, an Explorer’s Lounge on the island’s history, a yoga pavilion and a kids’ adventure club.

Getting there

Access is the other half of the project. In July 2026 Epochal bought the Port of Airlie, the cruise terminal and marina at Airlie Beach, to support access to the island.

Our view

An island lodge lives or dies on its boat link, and Epochal buying the marina that serves it tells us the company understands that. The lodge itself is still on paper, and 2027 is a forecast rather than a booking date, so this is one to watch rather than plan around.