Thousands of dollars a night: what surprises the most expensive hotel in New York Aman New York

В Love New York there are many unprecedented. The 83-room hotel, which officially opened on August 2, caused a stir. The week before, he was still halfway through construction. The new incarnation of the 100-year-old Crown Building at 57th and Fifth is the city's most anticipated hotel opening in a decade. Bloomberg.

This is a brand whose rooms cost over $2000 a night in any destination. Locals raised $100 in entry fees to become founding members of the world's first Aman club before opening. Since then, the cost of registration has doubled. Plus, you have to pay annual fees of $000.

The most modest hotel rooms do not even rent out on their own. Small rooms cannot be booked separately at Aman New York. For example, rooms with an area of ​​​​31,5 m² can only be booked in conjunction with a suite for $20 per night if you need extra space for luggage, your guest or employee.

Premier suites are the main part and have an area of ​​75 m²

And so far they are the only option for booking until the end of the year. While the hotel officially states that these rooms will start at $3200 per night, they are currently $4200 per night on weekdays. A weekend night here will set you back $5500.

It's not because of their size. A similar-sized suite at the recently refurbished Carlyle Hotel costs almost half the price on the same dates. It is the product of the talent of Aman and his devoted followers. The brand will appeal to those who appreciate its discreet luxury. Aman hotels typically take over architecturally significant buildings, such as Beijing's summer palaces or monumental Venetian palazzos, and transform them into ultra-modern hotels for the few guests who can afford to live in such luxury.

“There is a big difference between us and everyone else,” says Aman Chairman and CEO Vlad Doronin. “Our clients will not only be willing to pay luxury money for what we have built. But they will also be very pleased with the value they received by the time they left.”

Doronin could say this about himself. He admits he spared no expense and spent his budget, estimated at about $300 million, on the hotel alone. Though Doronin says the acquisition of the building and the addition of residences brought the total closer to $1,45 billion. This is partly due to the challenges of building a 6-star hotel amid the pandemic and supply chain crisis.

However, the result, as he promised, is unlike anything that exists in New York.

vertical resort

Designing and operating a Manhattan hotel presents unique challenges that are largely unfamiliar to Aman. Of its 34 branches, only the Tokyo Outpost is located in a major metropolitan area. However, building in urban centers is paramount to Doronin's expansion strategy. Bangkok and Miami will be next.

Not only can these destinations offer more potential for selling residences, but they can also help the brand reach a younger audience. Doronin says the average age of Aman guests has already begun to shift from 30-somethings to people in their 40s and XNUMXs working in high-tech.

New York has cramped and awkward floor plans that, as Doronin puts it, go against Aman's penchant for generous space. However, he says the only real difference between New York real estate and any other Aman property is that the amenities are vertical.

Trade unions in the United States defend the rights of hotel employees, and a hotel in New York spends much more on staff salaries than, for example, in Sri Lanka or Vietnam.

The facilities are really impressive enough to be a real wellness resort

Rooms occupy only six floors of the building. SPA and wellness center is located on three floors and includes rooms for cryotherapy chambers and an indoor pool.

A fully functional medical clinic occupies the entire top floor of the SPA center. This is where Dr. Robert Graham takes. The Harvard-trained therapist uses a variety of machines to measure inflammation and stress levels throughout the body before prescribing wellness programs. For example, acupuncture, intravenous peptides, or hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

More luxurious are two baths, similar to private SPA-salons inside the SPA-center.

There, in rooms with bedrooms and dining areas, small groups or couples can spend half a day or all day in a Moroccan hammam or an Eastern European bath. Any scrub is followed by a dip in the hot and cold outdoor pools set on a private deck in the garden with a retractable roof. As well as personalized lunch menus and optional massage sessions. Cost: $8500 for two for a full day. If there's any equivalent in New York, it's someone's $40 million Upper East Side townhouse.

Even the gym has surprises

There is a high-intensity Technogym treadmill here called the Skillmill, a $17 VacuTherm stepper that appears to have been cross-bred with a sauna. It is equipped with infrared heating elements to make you sweat more. There are also Jetsons benches with knotty white infrared rollers for lymphatic drainage.

“We wanted it to be fun and give people something they've never seen before,” said Yuki Kieno, Head of Wellness and SPA Aman.

The spa will be open to non-resident guests with two-hour signature treatments starting at $785. There are two Aman New York restaurants located on the 14th floor. Arva and Nama will serve Italian and Japanese cuisine. At the moment, all of them will work in a gradual opening mode, available only to members of the club and hotel guests.

There is also a spacious bar on the terrace, which, like an exquisite jewelry box, is wrapped in latticed metal sheet and bamboo slats. Decorated with bonfires, Japanese trees and water-reflecting elements, it is sure to become a popular spot.

The point here is not to attract locals, as most city hotels try to do. It is to keep a large number of people out so that the atmosphere remains exclusive and private. Even neighbors on Billionaire Row will find that their best chance of getting into the club is to sign up for the $200 entry fee.

On the subject: Exit through the window to the restaurant: a strange hotel shocked a tourist in New York

One place already open to the public is an underground jazz club curated by trumpeter Brian Newman. This is a cozy yet luxurious space with a very rare sound system. The only other public place in New York that has it is the Jazz at Lincoln Center.

Several zones will be available only to members of the club. This means that even if you pay $20 for a room, you still won't be allowed in. These areas include a small cigar lounge tucked away behind a secret door in the lobby, as well as a private wine library featuring little-known brands.

All about the details

What gives the greatest sense of luxury is how the architects rebuilt the historic Crown Building, not how they restored its ornate exterior panels with pounds of liquid gold. The way they widened its corridors and stretched the ceilings to create a wide space in the city.

This feeling of spaciousness is also conveyed by the heavy doors for each suite, behind which are carefully soundproofed walls. The hotel's marketing director said the staff were doing sound checks to measure street noise. It really is perfect silence. Except when the ambulance crosses Fifth Avenue.

Each suite has been refurbished with a functional fireplace, large spa bath, underfloor heating in the bathroom and a steam or rain shower. Everything seems expensive, down to the hangers in the wardrobes. Pivoting partitions, reminiscent of shoji screens, create privacy around the bed. Overall, the design draws on the company's Asian roots. And plain furniture reminds of natural elements.

Sense of place? New York is just visible from all these huge windows.

“We didn't cut any corners,” says Doronin. We had more problems than ever. And I built about 80 buildings. But here we did not make any compromises.”

What did it cost

Doronin says New York is a destination that will help Aman increase its market share. For example, the brand's audience is currently only 37% of Americans. The hotel has basically sold its apartments to the so-called Amanjunkies. This is a caste of loyal followers who collect rooms in Aman hotels. So schoolchildren in the 1980s collected baseball cards. Doronin says that 85% of his guests become regular visitors. Few hotel brands can compete with this number.

By combining Aman New York apartments with condos and adding a membership club model, Doronin expanded the Aman universe. Now it's not just a vacation - it's a lifestyle. “This discovery is an important milestone for our brand,” he stressed.

This explains why Doronin has invested heavily in making Aman New York a gem. “My financial advisors were constantly asking me what I think about when I create something like a double height lobby. This space could be worth an additional $60 million in apartments. But I didn’t listen to them,” he remarked, beaming. “This product is too important for the brand.”