Amanyangyun
Hotel, Luxury
Amanyangyun's ancient villas were transported brick by brick from Jiang Xi province | Courtesy of Aman
The Aman group goes to some lengths with their hotels, but this collaboration with wealthy Chinese businessman Ma Dadong for their fourth China destination is something else. In 2002, Ma got wind that a number of Ming- and Qing-era villas in his home province of Jiang Xi were threatened by the development of a reservoir – fast-forward 17 years and those same villas, rebuilt brick by brick by exquisite beam of nanmu wood became the pride of the Aman chain with the opening of Amanyangyun. While the villas – set in a hauntingly beautiful camphor forest that was also transported the 700km from Jiang Xi – are ancient, there is a preoccupation with quality here that gives Amanyangyun a deep, serene timelessness. On-site cultural learning centre Nan Shufang – named after the Forbidden City’s reading pavilion – offers classes in skills that the literati owners of the ancient villas might themselves have mastered, such as calligraphy and the guqin (a stringed instrument). The astonishing villas are just that – villas – and best suited to families or groups; the purpose-built accommodation in the form of suites is at the very highest end of design refinement, each with its own courtyard. There are three on-site restaurants: Italian, hotpot and Chinese, with the last specialising in the spicy cuisine of Jiang Xi province. Amanyangyun lies a 45-minute cab journey to the southwest of central Shanghai, but it’s as if that ride takes you to another planet – or perhaps another era.
