Guided tours depart from the Honolulu Museum of Art, which operates the tours in co-operation with DDFIA. Construction of Shangri La began in 1937, after Doris Duke's 1935 honeymoon which took her through the Islamic world. For nearly 60 years afterwards, Miss Duke commissioned and collected artifacts for the house, forming a collection of about 2,500 objects. The house was designed by Marion Sims Wyeth. An artistic reflection of the construction of Shangri La can be found in Kiana Davenport's novel Song of the Exile. The house was opened to the public as a museum, the Shangri La Center for Islamic Arts and Cultures, in 2002.
