privacy and highly personalized service in locations that range from the streets of New York to a forest garden in Japan. Shhh luxury at its finest.
One of Aman’ s most fervent guests was one Vladislav Doronin. Long before he acquired a controlling stake in the company in 2014, he was a patron, an“ Amanjunkie,” the endearing self-appellation for the brand’ s loyalists.“ I was one of them,” said Doronin, recognized this year as HOTELS Magazine’ s“ Hotelier of the World.”
Like baseball or Pokémon cards, there’ s an affluent band of travelers who collect Amans, from Amanpuri in Phuket, which opened in 1988 as the brand’ s first destination, to Amanvari, which opened this year on the East Cape of Baja California Sur in Mexico. It’ s a pricey hobby.“ I call it the addiction,” Doronin said.
Aman has a legacy built on silence, space and escape. Guests don’ t check into an Aman; they disappear into one. Doronin, like his guests, tries to keep a low profile, but playboy good looks, a string of high-profile relationships, including a past one with supermodel Naomi Campbell, and a once public wrangling over legal ownership of Aman( spoiler alert, he won), makes flying under the radar a herculean task. Despite a lofty persona, Doronin, it turns out, is about as down to earth as one can be with a net worth as considerable as his and the trappings that follow. Consider Capital Hill Residence, a home of his that can only be described as a sci-fi residence made more striking in its placement, carved into the Barvikha Forest outside Moscow. The home was designed by the late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid, her only completed private residence. Hadid purportedly referred to Doronin as the Russian James Bond, not only for his exquisite taste and wealth, but for his desire to create something extraordinary.
Capital Hill Residence is only one example of Doronin’ s preternatural ability to design and build places that become more
The Lounge Bar at Aman New York, which opened in 2022 inside the historic Crown Building.
than just venues to visit. Aman resorts have an almost monastic quality: guests pay large sums to slow down, harmonize with nature and receive the kind of intuitive, impeccable service that comes when staff outnumber guests. As many as half of Aman’ s locations sit within or adjacent to UNESCO World Heritage sites. While developers often try and cram as many rooms into a location to extract as much revenue, Aman properties feature smaller room counts amid public spaces where unharried guests may feel as if they are the only ones there. In a world of loud luxury, Aman opts for quiet solace.
Aman is deliberate in its growth. There are currently 36 Aman properties with 12 under development, including locations as unique and distinct from Texas Hill Country to Hokkaido, Japan, where low-slung buildings will blend into a hillside laying contiguous to the ski slopes of Mount Moiwa.
“ We’ re very picky,” Doronin said, an understatement, but one that illustrates the prominence and preeminence of the brand. George Clooney married his wife, Amal, at Aman Venice. Lady Gaga purportedly danced in the kitchen of Amangiri in Canyon Point, Utah, a monolithic masterpiece
The pool within Aman Spa at Aman Tokyo.
32 hotelsmag. com Oct / Nov 2026