Amangiri

The road from Page, Arizona crosses the state line into Utah and turns off into a valley of pale sandstone, where in 2009 Aman opened Amangiri at Canyon Point, the brand's second resort in the United States after Amangani in Wyoming and the one that has come to define it. The building is a long, low block of concrete, cast in a colour matched to the rock, with a swimming pool that bends around an escarpment at its centre so that swimmers touch the sandstone from the water.

History

Aman's founder Adrian Zecha had been looking at the American South West for years before the Canyon Point site was found: 600 acres of private land in a protected valley near Lake Powell, bordered by the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and the Navajo Nation. Three architects were commissioned, Marwan Al-Sayed, Wendell Burnette and Rick Joy, all working in Arizona and all associated with buildings of poured concrete and rammed earth in the desert. The resort opened in October 2009. It became the most photographed Aman after Amanpuri, a fixture of fashion shoots and celebrity weekends, and the brand added Camp Sarika, a separate camp of ten tented pavilions with private pools, on a ridge of the same estate in 2020.

Architecture and design

The architects set the building against the rock so that the escarpment becomes part of the plan. Walls are concrete, cast in situ with local sand as aggregate, and left bare inside and out. Openings are tall and narrow or long and low, framing the mesas and the sky. The pool curls around a fin of sandstone at the heart of the site. There is almost no ornament; the design relies on light, shadow and the colour of the stone, which changes through the day. The roofs are flat, the courtyards open to the sky, and the whole is barely visible from the road.

Rooms and suites

Amangiri has 34 suites in two wings, the Desert and the Mesa, each with a private courtyard or terrace, a concrete-and-timber interior, a king bed, a fireplace and a bath with a view. The larger pool suites and the Girijaala and Amangiri suites add private pools and roof terraces. Camp Sarika's ten pavilions, a short drive from the main building, each have a plunge pool, a fire pit and one or two bedrooms under canvas.

Dining

The restaurant occupies the centre of the main building, with a terrace facing the escarpment and the pool, and serves a menu drawn on the South West: local lamb and beef, corn, chillies, Navajo influences. Breakfast and lunch are informal; dinner changes daily. Camp Sarika has its own restaurant and bar.

Wellness

The Aman Spa covers about 25,000 square feet, with a water pavilion, a flotation pool, steam rooms and treatment rooms whose programmes draw on Navajo healing traditions. Outside, the activity list is the real spa: guided hikes, the via ferrata routes bolted into the cliffs above the resort, horse riding, hot-air balloon flights, boat trips on Lake Powell and visits to Antelope Canyon and Horseshoe Bend.

Weddings and events

Weddings are held at Amangiri on the desert terraces and in the pavilions, usually as full buyouts of the resort or of Camp Sarika; the setting rather than any ballroom is the point. Small corporate retreats use the private dining rooms and the library. There is no conference facility.

Location

Canyon Point lies in Kane County, Utah, just over the Arizona border, about 25 minutes by car from Page, where Page Municipal Airport takes private jets and a commuter service. Las Vegas and Phoenix are each roughly four and a half hours by road, Salt Lake City more than five. Lake Powell and the Glen Canyon Dam are a short drive; Zion National Park is about two hours west, the Grand Canyon's North Rim about two and a half. Among luxury resorts in Utah, nothing else sits inside this particular landscape.