Amansara

In 1962 the French architect Laurent Mondet completed a guest villa in Siem Reap for Norodom Sihanouk, then Cambodia's head of state, who used it to receive the foreign visitors he brought to Angkor. Forty years later, in 2002, Aman reopened the house as Amansara. It is now a hotel of 24 suites on the road to the temples, and Mondet's modernist building, with its round dining room and long horizontal lines, is still its heart.

History

The villa belongs to the period in which Cambodia's New Khmer Architecture flourished under Sihanouk's patronage, when Phnom Penh and the provinces gained schools, sports halls, public buildings and houses in a confident tropical modernism. Through the 1960s the guest villa received diplomats and dignitaries visiting Angkor. The decades that followed left it neglected. Aman took it on at the start of the 2000s, when Siem Reap was only beginning to receive large numbers of visitors, restored the original building and opened it as Amansara in 2002. A later phase added suites with private plunge pools, bringing the total to 24.

Architecture and design

Mondet's building is a clear example of tropical modernism: flat roofs, deep overhangs, courtyards and a strong horizontal line, designed to shade and ventilate in a hot climate. The restoration kept that geometry and pared the interiors back to pale walls, stone and dark wood. The newer suites, arranged around courtyards, follow the same restrained language, so the old and new parts read as one house. The effect is closer to a private residence than to a resort, which suits a property of this size and the guests it attracts.

Rooms and suites

All 24 rooms are suites, set around courtyards, and part of them have private plunge pools. Interiors are spare, with large beds, sitting areas and terraces. The absence of clutter is deliberate: after a morning among carved sandstone, the eye is glad of plain walls.

Dining

Meals are served in the circular dining room of the original villa, with Khmer dishes alongside international cooking. The kitchen also sets up breakfasts, picnics and dinners away from the hotel, at the temples or in the countryside, and these become part of many guests' itineraries.

Wellness

The spa offers Khmer massage and other treatments, and the swimming pool sits in a courtyard sheltered by the walls of the villa. Yoga and meditation sessions are available, and the pool is the natural place to wait out the midday heat between morning and late afternoon visits to the temples.

Location

Amansara stands on the road that leads north out of Siem Reap towards the Angkor Archaeological Park, inscribed by UNESCO in 1992. Angkor Wat is about ten minutes by car. Guests tour the temples by remorque, the Cambodian motorbike carriage, with the hotel's own guides, who time visits to the larger sites to avoid the crowds and suggest quieter temples such as Preah Khan and Ta Som. Ta Prohm, still gripped by the roots of silk-cotton and strangler fig trees, and the Bayon, with its carved stone faces at the centre of Angkor Thom, are each within half an hour. Banteay Srei, with its pink sandstone carvings, is about an hour away. Siem Reap Angkor International Airport, opened in 2023 to replace the old airport close to town, is roughly an hour's drive. For a luxury hotel in Siem Reap, Amansara is small and close to the temples, and its history ties it to the years when Angkor first became a destination for international visitors.