An Illustrated Tale of Two Family Coppola Hideaways

The jungle is a master secret keeper. In the thicket of Belize’s Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Reserve, jaguars, ocelots, and howler monkeys slink amongst lush greens. Alongside them lives another secret: the thatched-roof cabanas, cooling plunge pools, open-air dining, and inviting wood-planked Jaguar Bar of Blancaneaux Lodge. The cinematic beauty of the discrete twenty-cabana hideaway, beloved by travelers in the know, can be attributed to the natural glory of Belize—and the hotel’s artist founder, the iconic filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola. Since happening upon the property in 1981, Coppola has meticulously crafted an idyllic jungle retreat that is at once elegant, private, and deeply specific to the tastes of his close family.

“Coppola’s resorts are unique because of how they began—what eyes found them, what hands built them,” says the artist Geoff McFetridge, who tells the story of Blancaneaux Lodge and its seaside other half, the twenty-five cottage Turtle Inn, through a series of illustrations. This year, the pair of luxury boutique hotels will celebrate fifty collective years of hosting adventure-seeking travelers. McFetridge’s emotive drawings mark the moment.

Both intimate properties were undertaken by Francis Ford Coppola as family retreats long before opening to the public. As such, both are dotted with elements unique to the inventive Coppola clan. Los Angeles-based McFetridge, who can trace his first collaboration with the Coppola family back to the days of Sofia Coppola’s early film projects, was the ideal co-conspirator for the series of playful illustrations. “Sofia was one of my earliest collaborators as I established myself in ’90s Los Angeles,” says the artist, who recounts meetings with the young director in Los Angeles’s Fred62 diner. Like the Coppolas, whose creative projects span the film, hospitality, wine, and publishing worlds, McFetridge’s work sprawls across industries and styles.

“I’m well known for a very specific type of super precise graphic painting, but my work table is covered in many types of materials,” says McFetridge, of his similarly varied mediums. Here, McFetridge eschewed paint in favor of colored pencil. “I wanted the drawings to have the same feeling as the works I do in my sketchbooks when I travel.” The sketches begin with Francis Ford Coppola’s first visit to Blancaneaux Lodge, shortly after falling for the jungled landscape of the Philippines that served as a set for the film Apocalypse Now. "He had three kids; he had a lot going on,” says McFetridge, noting that Coppola had also recently purchased the Napa, California, winery.

But “the obsession” with the jungle landscape was unavoidable and “equally real,” explains the artist. “Francis saw something in the jungle in the Philippines that he could not let go,” says McFetridge. “He followed that feeling and love for adventure all the way to Belize.” Later, we see the jaguar again, perched in the director’s chair, green canopy as a backdrop. A nod to Coppola—and his pawed friend—exists at Blancaneaux now, in the inviting hotel bar, which looks out into the rainforest and the Jaguar Juice cocktail slipped into each guest’s hand upon arrival.

The sense of whimsy in the images was made possible by the openness of the assignment, he says. “I was given some materials, but there was not much of a brief, which I liked,” says McFetridge. “I am always drawn to projects I can approach like a writer, where I am able to form the project in a very broad way. In two images, he envisions the rare species of birds and butterflies that inhabit the surrounding jungle alighting on the rim of a wine glass; another shows a Lavazza espresso machine being rowed ashore to Turtle Inn for the first perfect beachside crema. The drawings hold a sense of nostalgia: Flipping through them feels a bit like turning the pages of a well-loved journal. “At times I feel like I am a ‘commercial poet’ where the success of the final result is not dependent on how detailed or researched they are, but by how well they create an impression or feeling,” says McFetridge.

In other drawings, McFetridge shares snippets from the hideaways of today, such as a swimming hole in the Privassion River, which glides alongside Blancaneaux Lodge, or the shell phone, an innovation by Francis Ford Coppola for every room at Turtle Inn and Blancaneaux Lodge. “This is very Coppola,” says McFetridge, of the conch shell that hides a phone, beloved by children and adults alike. “They invent things constantly.”

Roman Coppola and his sister, Sofia, both have homes at Turtle Inn. Their shared elegant taste and artistic touch mark the property. A stone's throw from the Coppola family homes stands the thatched-roof cottages beloved by divers, drawn to the nearby UNESCO World Heritage Site Belize Barrier Reef; birdwatchers who fancy a day spent observing some of Belize’s 590 species; and fellow artists, inspired by the painterly views of the Mayan Mountains and the Caribbean Sea.

To McFetridge, it's that creative spirit that sets the two hotels apart. “The location and sets are by Francis Ford Coppola,” he says. “I believe that the intentions of how you start something will guide it for all its life,” and here, in the jungle of Belize and along its clear coastal waters, at properties that began as family hideaways, “they have built an extension of their creative output.”