Vladislav Doronin, the chairman and chief executive officer of Aman Resorts, the super-luxury hotel chain, is standing in the middle of a filthy concrete husk of a room in midtown Manhattan. “Look at this!” he says, gesturing through the dirt-stained windows of the 24th floor of the Crown Building, whose 4th through 26th stories he’d purchased with a partner for about $500 million in 2015. (The bottom three stories, which are for retail, are owned by other companies.)
“It’s not just the location,” he says, nodding to the fact that the Fifth Avenue building is on one of the most expensive, if not sought-after blocks in the world. It’s also the view. “I prefer to stay here, closer to the ground, to see real New York,” he says. “If you were on the 70th floor of some building, you’d just see clouds.”
To the right, across Fifth Avenue, is Trump Tower. The Plaza Hotel is visible to the left, and directly north, over the roof of the Bergdorf Goodman department store, a visitor can see an expansive stretch of Central Park.
In less than three years, Doronin plans to transform the building’s interior to match—and surpass—those views.
What’s Inside
The fourth through tenth floors of the building will be occupied by New York’s first Aman hotel, which will have 83 hotel rooms, each measuring at least 70 square meters (753 square feet).
The 11th floor and above (which will be developed by Doronin’s U.S. development arm, OKO Group LLC), will be transformed into 20, Aman-branded residences, crowned (pun very much intended) with a five-story, near-14,000-square-foot penthouse that will be priced in excess of $100 million. “When I bought Aman in 2014, the whole goal was to bring Aman into cities,” Doronin says—“to turn Aman from horizontal to vertical.”
By that, he’s referring to one of the brand’s primary and enduring allures: For years, very, very wealthy guests would make pilgrimages to Aman resorts perched on top of mountains in Greece, in canyons in Utah, or in forests in Bali, where unobtrusive service, a strong emphasis on wellness, and staggeringly expensive nightly rates (easily more than $1,500 a night) were guaranteed to make well-heeled travelers “feel like they are in a private home,” Doronin says. Visitors who have stayed at an Aman resort know this is true—provided the private homes they are accustomed to are filled with servants, chefs, and perfect minimalist furniture.
The urban pulse of a city doesn’t quite fit within that relaxed, decadent ethos, yet Doronin opened an Aman in the heart of Tokyo in 2014 and it was met with almost instantaneous success. “We’re 65 percent more expensive than the average” luxury hotel’s nightly cost, he says. “And we’re always fully booked.”
Encouraged, Doronin has begun to expand into other cities—an Aman is planned outside Shanghai, and Doronin says he’d like to see Amans in London, Paris, and other global cities in addition to New York.
Doronin is betting that the hotel’s amenities will set it apart from the competition. The Aman in New York will have a three-story spa (on its seventh, eighth, and ninth floors), an Aman member’s club, a jazz club, and a cigar bar, all available to residents. The hotel will also have a Japanese restaurant, an Italian restaurant, a piano bar, and a “Wine Library”—all available to the public, but “especially” for residents, Doronin says.