Amanyara

Most visitors to Providenciales never see the Northwest Point. The road to it leaves the resorts of Grace Bay behind and crosses eighteen kilometres of scrub before it ends at a gatehouse and a line of ponds. Beyond them stands Amanyara, the Aman group's Caribbean resort, on a stretch of coast bordered by the Northwest Point Marine National Park.

History

The Turks and Caicos had one coast developed for tourism, Grace Bay on the north shore, when Aman chose the opposite end of the island in the early 2000s. The name joins "aman" to "yara", the Arawak word for place. The resort opened in the mid-2000s and the villa estate on the land beside it grew over the following years. Hurricane Irma crossed the islands in September 2017 and the resort closed for repairs before reopening the next season.

Architecture and design

Jean-Michel Gathy of Denniston designed the resort with the pavilions of Southeast Asia in mind rather than the Caribbean. Each guest pavilion is a timber-framed house with a pitched roof, floor-to-ceiling glass and a terrace, placed either on the rocks above the sea or beside the reflecting ponds that wind through the site. The main building, with its restaurant and bar, is set among the ponds too, with a long pool above the beach and the sea as the end of every view. Materials are dark hardwood, local stone and black-tiled water. The planting is the native scrub of the island left largely as it was.

Rooms and suites

There are 40 guest pavilions and a group of villas, the latter with three to six bedrooms, their own pools and staff. The ocean pavilions stand above the rocks with the sea on the doorstep; the pond pavilions are set back among the water gardens and are the quieter choice. All have a king bed, a sitting area, a bathroom with outdoor shower and a terrace with daybeds.

Dining

The Restaurant in the main building serves Mediterranean and Asian dishes with fish from the island's boats. The Beach Club has a bar and grill at the sand, and a Japanese menu is served in the evening. The villas have their own cooks and the resort sets up dinners on the beach.

Wellness

The Aman Spa has treatment pavilions and a yoga pavilion among the ponds. The 50-metre main pool and the beach are the heart of the day, and the house reef, which drops off into deep water within swimming distance of the shore, makes Amanyara one of the few resorts in the Caribbean where good snorkelling and diving start at the beach. The Nature Discovery Centre, run by the resort, studies the marine life of the national park and takes guests out to it.

Weddings and events

Amanyara hosts weddings on the beach and in the villas, where the largest houses have the space for ceremonies and dinners on their own terraces and lawns. The resort does not publish room capacities; celebrations beyond a few dozen guests take the resort in full, which is often done. Company groups use the villas and the private dining spaces of the main building.

Location

The resort occupies the Northwest Point of Providenciales, about 25 minutes by road from Providenciales International Airport and 35 minutes from Grace Bay. The marine national park begins at the resort boundary and includes the reef wall offshore. Among the luxury resorts of the Turks and Caicos, it is the only one on this coast, and the sunset falls into the sea in front of the pavilions rather than behind them.