Amanera

East of Río San Juan, the road along the north coast of the Dominican Republic climbs onto cliffs above the Atlantic. At Playa Grande the cliffs fall to a long curve of sand backed by palms, and Amanera stands on the headland above it. The resort opened in 2015 with 25 casitas, and its neighbour on the clifftops is the Playa Grande golf course, laid out by Robert Trent Jones Sr. along the edge of the sea.

History

Aman began in 1988 with Amanpuri in Phuket, founded by the hotelier Adrian Zecha, and built its name on small resorts in remote places. Robert Trent Jones Sr. designed the Playa Grande course in the 1990s, one of the last of his long career. The course and the land around it later passed to new owners, who brought in Aman to build a resort and asked Rees Jones, the designer's son, to restore his father's layout. Amanera received its first guests in late 2015. It was the group's second resort in the Caribbean, after Amanyara on Providenciales in the Turks and Caicos Islands, which opened in 2006.

Architecture and design

The architect was John Heah, who designed the resort as a series of low pavilions in the forest along the cliff. The Casa Grande, the main pavilion, stands at the cliff edge with a long pool laid out in front of it, so that the water seems to run straight out towards the horizon above the beach. Its roof is broad and its sides largely open, and the breeze from the Atlantic passes through it. Paths lead from it into the trees, where the casitas sit apart from one another, and a stair descends the cliff to the sand.

The design is spare, in the manner of the group: few materials, strong horizontal lines, and views that do the decorating. Nothing on the cliff rises above the trees.

Rooms and suites

All 25 casitas are freestanding pavilions with a bedroom, a bathroom and a covered terrace. Some stand on the cliff edge with direct views over Playa Grande, others are set back among the trees with views over the golf course and the sea, and several have private pools. The distance between them means that a casita feels like a small house of its own rather than a room in a hotel.

Dining

Meals are taken at the Casa Grande, where the restaurant and bar look over the pool and the beach. The menu draws on Dominican cooking and on the fish landed along this coast. Down on the sand, the beach club serves lunch and drinks in the shade of the palms.

Weddings and events

The resort can be taken for exclusive use, and with 25 casitas it is sized for a family wedding or a private gathering rather than a large event. Ceremonies are held on the cliff, at the Casa Grande and on the beach below.

Location

Amanera lies on the north coast between Río San Juan and Cabrera, in the province of María Trinidad Sánchez. The nearest international airports are Gregorio Luperón at Puerto Plata, to the west, and Samaná El Catey, to the east, each a drive of a little over an hour. Santo Domingo is further, across the mountains to the south. Playa Preciosa, a smaller beach on the next cove, lies just beside Playa Grande, and the Atlantic swell that reaches this coast makes both beaches livelier than the calm sands of the south. At Río San Juan, the Laguna Gri-Gri is a mangrove lagoon explored by boat. From January to March humpback whales gather to breed in the Bay of Samaná, to the east, and boat trips go out to watch them. For a luxury resort in the Dominican Republic, the setting is unusual: no marina, no large hotels nearby, only cliff, forest and a long open beach.