Basking in the German Tropics

Not long ago a pessimist could have safely muttered: “You can’t find paradise in a zeppelin hangar.” Well, brush the snow off your coat and step inside. It’s balmy. An exotic bird is twittering. Lots of exotic birds are twittering. Is that a banana tree? That’s an awfully big beach. Are those Brazilian dancers? This fruity drink is very nice. Waiter ...

The sun is fake. In this country of unbroken winter clouds, there are inevitably a few glitches when conjuring paradise.

The new Tropical Islands Resort unfolds in artificial splendor in an abandoned airship hangar at the edge of a pine forest one hour south of Berlin. There’s a lagoon, a waterfall, thatched Amazon huts, the facade of a Balinese temple, a 43,000-square-foot sea and a lot of pasty, slightly puzzled Germans wandering around in Speedos and wondering if they should be skiing instead.

Tropical Islands is the work of Colin Au, a Malaysian businessman who specializes in cruises and casinos. Two years ago, an associate told Au about one of the largest free-standing buildings in the world. Rising like a huge blister near a decrepit Cold War-era runway, the hangar was built in 1999 by a government-subsidized aeronautical company that went bankrupt.

Au inspected the 16-acre hangar and decided that this echoing cavern would be an ideal escape from Germany’s mean-spirited weather.

The $90-million project has created 600 jobs. Its employees include a troupe of Chinese acrobats, yoga instructors and a few Thai masseuses with powdered faces and sparkly things in their hair. There are 12,000 plants and trees -- 5,00 species -- imported from Asia, South America and Florida.

“This will be a real tropical forest one day,” says Alexander Hess, a public relations officer whose business card is shaped like a rising sun. “We keep the overall temperature at about 25 degrees Celsius [77 degrees Fahrenheit]. The temperature of the lagoon water is 32 degrees. The path through the rain forest is 1 kilometer long.... We have the sounds of the forest.”

Birdcalls and various grunts and yowls rise from speakers disguised as rocks. But no real wildlife lurks in this paradise. Imagine the insurance liability with a panther darting around.

Hess looks to the domed ceiling. “The Statue of Liberty fits in here standing up,” he says. “The Eiffel Tower fits in lying down.” He then points to an ornate building to his left. “This is the Thai House. Workers came here from Thailand to build it.... You can have a business event or get married in there.”

Erhard Liebreich, who paid about $20 for four hours of escape, is already married. Wearing a striped bathrobe, the retired window cleaner stands in the sand and looks over the beach. A bottle of champagne sits on the table near his lounge chair.

Liebreich and his family have driven down from Berlin. He seems to be waiting for an epiphany or for a dolphin to jump against the towering, blue screen that’s supposed to be the sky.

“The meals could be warmer. Otherwise, it’s OK,” he says. “It’s not really paradise, but it’s pleasant. It was cold when we first got here, but someone must have turned up the heat. The beach is warmer now.”

“The ceiling’s too high,” says Liebreich’s daughter, Corinna, adjusting her bikini and dipping a toe into the water. “You need a lower ceiling for paradise, maybe with some stars sprinkled in it. We’ve already spent nearly 100 euro [$133].”

A man and a boy float toward the ceiling in a large helium balloon. A Chinese acrobat with painted eyes is rolling on a can near the food court. Children giggle.

Landscape artist Sven Herrla, cuddling with Sandra Fiebig on a lounge chair, says it’s his second trip to Tropical Islands, which opened in December.

“All in all, it’s OK,” he says. “It’s quite astonishing how quickly they built this thing. The plants still look a bit withered, though. They need to let some more sun in here. But progress has been made over the last three weeks.”

He dips his head. “The waiters could smile more.”

The state of Brandenburg is expected to give Tropical Islands about $17 million in subsidies this year. Government officials hope the resort is a wise as well as whimsical investment for a beleaguered economy in a region with 20% unemployment. It is so far faring better than the site’s last tenant, CargoLifter, which miscalculated the demand for airships and abandoned the hangar after failing to sell a single zeppelin. Tropical Islands attracted 100,000 visitors in its first month of business.

Erich Floper is on a scouting mission. He sits with a camera near the waterfall and lagoon; one gets the feeling that Elvis Presley will appear with a bathing suit and a ukulele. Floper has been here before. But his buddies near Cologne want to see pictures before they book a group trip.

Floper volunteered and drove six hours through the snow. Like many Germans, he is a ruminator of details but is amazed at Au’s imagination -- a brochure come to life without his having to pay $2,000 for a plane ticket to Tahiti.

“I hope it works. It’ll be good for the economy of the region,” he says. “But nowadays people want perfection. I, myself, like this paradise. Look at the nice women. If you can’t be happy when there’s nice women running around, what really can you be happy with?”

He laughs amid a wisp of Asian music and the recorded twitter of an exotic bird.

A fake sun blushes on the blue screen. Paradise needs a few more tweaks. The resort is replacing the drab ceiling skin on the southern side roof with steel and glass. Soon the real thing -- an inconstant presence in the winter sky anyway -- will shine across the palms, the fake rocks and the imagined macaws.