Aman New York
Aman Resort’s highly anticipated Manhattan retreat has opened, and it has an eye-watering price tag. Here’s our verdict.
The first surprise is the silence. To reach the new Aman New York, I have been schlepping from my apartment through Manhattan’s turbulent traffic, finally being deposited on one of Midtown’s busiest crossroads – 57th St and Fifth Ave. On one side looms Tiffany’s. The other, Bergdorf Goodman. In front of me are the windows of Bulgari. New York is glittering but the soundtrack is a symphony of sirens and horns.
No sooner do I step through the portals of Aman than an eerie quiet envelops me, thanks to the magic of state-of-the-art soundproofing. The sepulchral lobby, encased in dark marble and polished wood, reminds me of the entrance to an Egyptian temple. The next surprise is the fireplace. Even though it is the sweltering height of New York summer – a 32C August afternoon – flames are blazing behind glass. It’s hypnotic and surreal. I put my hand near and the desk clerk nods in approval. “The fireplaces give off no heat,” she says.
These are the first signs that I am not so much checking into a hotel as entering an alternate dimension of reality. The ambience is so calm I feel the need to whisper. Do I check in here? No, the exquisitely groomed desk agent whisks me in an elevator to the 14th floor, where the real hotel lobby is located, next to a cathedral-like, double-level lounge. Other special elevators service the hotel and spa, which covers 25,000sq m over three floors. “Think of it as a vertical resort,” the agent says.
In the world of hospitality, the opening of the 83-suite Aman New York has been a much-anticipated event. It involved a massive renovation of the illustrious Crown Building, a 101-year-old Beaux-Arts classic skyscraper, with exterior detailing that includes a spire gilded with more than 100 litres of gold. From 1929 to 1932, its 12th floor housed the first incarnation of the Museum of Modern Art. For its new 21st-century life, the interior offices were gutted and remodelled by Belgian architect Jean-Michel Gathy from Denniston Architects, creating rooms and corridors with generous proportions and light. Opening was delayed by the pandemic until this month. Now it has the honour of being the priciest hotel in New York, by a long shot. Rates vary but count on $US3200 ($4630) a night.
Behind a towering black door, my accommodation is enormous by Manhattan standards, 70sq m, with two windows looking out over Bergdorf’s, and my own blazing fireplace. Aman’s style is sleekly minimalist, with muted colours, gold details and a reliance on natural materials; even the room key is made of wood. There are influences from across Asia, where the brand began. One wall is covered with a Japanese mural inspired by a 15th-century masterpiece, Pine Trees by Hasegawa Tohaku. Echoing the layout of ryokan inns, the room is divided by chic versions of shoji screens that rotate so I can configure the space myself.
Everywhere I turn offers luxurious surprises. The bathroom floor is heated (as is the toilet seat), the wardrobes leather-lined. The bath is like a giant half-eggshell. Again, the sound-proofing is rigorous, including triple-glazed windows, keeping street noise to a mere nine decibels (a whisper is 25). And technology is hidden, to preserve the elegant lines of the room; the TV rises or falls from a desk with the touch of an iPad.
As the agent leaves, I resist the urge to channel Seinfeld and say, “Serenity now.”
The first Aman resort opened in 1988 on Phuket, Thailand. Amanpuri, Sanksrit for “place of peace”, created a discrete style that is often compared to the “well-staffed private home of a friend”. It was such a success the model was repeated across Asia. The brand currently has 34 properties in 20 countries, mostly in natural settings such as the Himalayas of Bhutan. Now Aman is dipping its toe into urban locales. The first opened in central Tokyo. But a Manhattan resort presented unique challenges. “How do you create an oasis of peace but not lose the energy of New York, which is why people come here?” muses Simon Kopec, director of marketing, as he shows me around.
One solution was to mix the hotel with permanent residences and a private club (waitlisted with a $US200,000 joining fee plus $US15,000 a year). Another was to include two restaurants, a bar and jazz lounge that will be open to the public. The light-filled Arva (Latin for “cultivated land”) is a modern Italian eatery; working with more than 700 farmers in the New York area, it offers such delicacies as fettucine with chanterelle mushrooms, washed down with a suitably exotic Serbian chardonnay. The Japanese Nama (“Raw”) is in a space inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright, with dramatic chiselled stone and an enormous hinoki wood counter for omakase-style dining.
The three-storey spa is the core of the hotel. Even the changing room resembles a contemporary art gallery, decorated with images that evoke Bali. Left to my own devices, I become lost among its Escher-like stairs, but finally discover where to take the signature New York treatment, a two-hour mix of exfoliating full-body scrub and massage. I then repair to the spectacular 20m indoor pool in a cavernous space lined with fireplaces. Another entire floor is occupied by a Harvard-trained doctor who advises on futuristic medical therapies, including a cryotherapy chamber. For me, even the gym needs explanation; a high-intensity treadmill (The Skillmill) includes infrared heat lamps to increase sweat, and sci-fi-style benches with white infra-red rollers for lymphatic drainage.
I soon decide that my favourite corner of the hotel is the Garden Terrace, a bright cocoon of metal lattice with a circular firepit, Japanese trees, a reflective pool and fountains emitting a gentle tinkle that blocks out any street noise far below. A warm summer breeze wafts through but the glass roof can be opened and closed, allowing the space to be used in winter. I spend the afternoon in a lounge chair, reading newspapers (a retro treat; I haven’t seen a physical copy of The New York Times for years) and pondering my surrounds. The hotel’s use of marble has its own New York backstory, I learn, since this part of 57th St was called Marble Row in the Gilded Age, in honour of the millionaires’ houses immortalised by Edith Wharton in novels such as The Age of Innocence. Other local references are even more subtle. One wallpaper echoes the bark of a birch tree that covered the hotel’s pre-colonial site, the island of Manhattan.
Waking early next morning, I realise I have forgotten I am in the heart of New York City. One of the great treats of Aman’s location is being only two blocks from Central Park, so I venture out for a stroll along paths that are delightfully empty. It’s so seductive I take another nature walk at dusk.
But maybe this is enough serenity, I think. For a grand finale, I head to the hotel’s subterranean jazz bar. It’s speakeasy style; to enter, I have to find an unmarked doorway on 56th St, passing through grey corridors that seem to be part of a construction site. But stepping into the bar is magical. It’s an intimate, glamorous space that reminds me of nightclubs in black and white Hollywood movies – the Rick’s Bar of Manhattan, with one of the most advanced sound systems in the city, comparable to the Lincoln Centre.
The line-up is curated by the trumpeter Brian Newman, band leader for Lady Gaga when she is in Las Vegas. “It’s been a dream to have this place,” Newman tells me, adding that he and fellow musicians followed construction and design intimately. It shows. As I settle back in a lounge chair with a delicious cocktail, a summery take on a Bellini using peach, and truffle grilled cheese, the place is hopping on a Tuesday night.
After the show, the manager confides that there is a special elevator for guests to return to the hotel rather than step outside. Within minutes, I’m back in my room and soaking in my bathtub, listening to the sounds of New York silence.
In the know
Aman New York has suites in seven categories, ranging from Premier to the Aman Suites, with some yet to be unveiled; from $US3200 ($4630) a night. Nama restaurant opened this week.
Tony Perrottet was a guest of Aman Resorts.