The stone houses at Amanyangyun are four centuries old and stand a thousand kilometres from where they were built. So do the camphor trees around them.
Amanyangyun sits on Shanghai's southwestern fringe, in Minhang, forty minutes from the Bund. The resort covers 140 hectares of woodland, lakes and stone. At its centre stands a camphor tree of eighty tonnes, the oldest of thousands moved here from the same place as the houses.
That place is Fuzhou, in Jiangxi province, where a reservoir was set to flood a valley of Ming and Qing dynasty villages and an ancient camphor forest. A local entrepreneur, Ma Dadong, spent years dismantling the houses stone by numbered stone, lifting the trees with their roots, and trucking both east toward Shanghai. The rebuild took more than a decade.
The houses
Aman opened here in 2018, in buildings drawn by Kerry Hill Architects around the salvaged village. Eleven Antique Villas are the reassembled originals, their carved lintels and grey brick set back into courtyards, each with four bedrooms and a private pool. Twenty-four Ming Pavilion suites sit alongside them in new timber and stone, lighter and lower, keyed to the woods.
The old and the new share the same palette. Grey brick, dark timber, pale stone, water held flat in long reflecting pools. Lattice screens throw geometric shadows across floors through the afternoon. The village feel is the point; the resort reads as a settlement in a forest, not a hotel on a plot.
The houses were numbered, taken apart and driven a thousand kilometres to be built again exactly.
The Splendid EditThe centre
Nan Shufang stands at the heart of the resort, a cultural centre named for the imperial study of the Qing court. It runs calligraphy, guqin, tea and incense, the scholar's pursuits, taught by resident masters. The building faces its own reflecting pool and a causeway approach, the most photographed silhouette on the grounds.
Courtesy of Aman — Amanyangyun, Shanghai, China
The table
Five restaurants divide the cooking. Arva sends out Italian from a lakeside room; Lazhu and Yinlu keep to Chinese registers, Cantonese and Jiangnan; the Lounge and the Bei TeaHouse hold the quieter hours. A 200 square-metre organic garden feeds the kitchens, and guests can walk it with the chefs.
The Aman Spa runs to the brand's usual scale, with a jinsinan banya, yoga and pilates studios and treatment rooms facing the trees. Cycling paths thread the camphor woods; afternoon tea comes on a wooden boat out on the lake.
Hotel facts
Amanyangyun, 6161 Yuanjiang Road, Minhang, Shanghai. Opened 2018, designed by Kerry Hill Architects. 24 Ming Pavilion suites and 11 four-bedroom Antique Villas across 140 hectares. Five restaurants, Aman Spa, and the Nan Shufang cultural centre. Restaurants and spa are open to non-residents by reservation.
The Splendid Edit on Amanyangyun, Shanghai. Details from Aman.
Photography courtesy of Aman — Amanyangyun, Shanghai