Welcome Back to Paradise

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To return to a paradise previously lost would make anyone happy. And Adrian Zecha is clearly content. He is sitting amid swaying coconut trees at Amanpuri on Phuket—the first resort he created in 1988. Cigar in hand, his youthful demeanor belying his 68 years, he is explaining how it felt to remove himself from Amanresorts, the luxury resort chain he founded and nurtured for more than a decade before a shareholder dispute over its parent company forced his two-year hiatus. "When you have a two-year-old child, you definitely are indispensable," says Zecha. "At 12 you are to a lesser degree. At 22 even less so. When I left, I felt it was still too soon. But in hindsight it was the right thing to do."

To the wealthy travelers who frequent the chain, the Amanresorts name (aman means peaceful in Sanskrit) can hardly be uttered without Zecha in the same breath. The Indonesian native did not just found a resort chain; he perfected a concept. Minimalist in design and complementary to often remote, natural settings, each retreat is a unique encapsulation of the culture and country in which it sits. Pieces of his paradise are scattered mainly across Asia, but there are Zecha resorts as well in France, the U.S. and Morocco. "To create a simple meal, " says Zecha, "is often more difficult than to create a fancy one." Having built and cosseted these small oases, it was hard to give up his roles as chairman and ceo. His greatest fear? Not knowing whether the intimate creation would become just another commercial enterprise.

As it turned out, his worst fears were almost realized. The focus on nature—a dramatically spotlit palm, perhaps—had started to shift: fairy lights began appearing on trees. Resorts started to charge for little extras. New employees weren't imbued with the Zecha mantra of "creative service." Since his return in October, however, Zecha—who now has full management control of Amanresorts, while the firms of two longtime friends control parent company Silverlink Holdings—has been on a mission to re-instill some of the lost passion. "The changes were less physical and more philosophical," he says. "Not everyone who was hired while I was gone was privy to the concept and culture we had."

Zecha is very much the anticorporate boss. He shuns manuals and encourages staff to employ unobtrusive, personal touches to make each visitor's stay memorable. Because many guests come from stressful, corporate and urban surroundings, Zecha tries to create the opposite environment. "The whole point is to keep things as 'not institutional' as possible," he says.

That is all about aesthetics: restaurants lack name signs to avoid any suggestion of commercialism. At Amanpuri, chilled bottled water flows freely at poolside and on the beach. A floating dock in the Andaman Sea is supplied with towels and water. Beach sand is sprayed with cold water so it is not hot to the touch. Such gestures clearly impress the class of repeat visitors, dubbed Aman junkies. Bernadette Tyrrell, a 33-year-old London stockbroker, has splashed out at Amanresorts seven times with her husband, an oil trader. "We all have nice houses," she says, "and we don't like leaving to go to lesser places."

Zecha never set out to create retreats for the rich. The descendant of a Czech-Indonesian family that acquired plantations in Indonesia in the 19th century, Zecha was educated in the U.S. and began his career in Asia as a journalist and publisher. In the early 1970s he helped found Regent International Hotels, but cashed out 13 years later. Shortly afterward he was looking to build a private holiday home for himself, his wife and son, when he stumbled upon the coconut plantation where Amanpuri sits today.

Eventually, he built 11 Amanresorts, each fitted with fewer than 55 rooms to ensure A-list treatment for every guest. It all comes at a price, of course. Rooms, often stand-alones, begin at $575. Suites cost up to $2,200. Private villas, offered at some resorts, can be rented for up to $6,000 a night. "There are many versions of my preferred lifestyle," Zecha laughs. "Since I can't afford to live the lifestyle, I might as well create it."

Zecha has created yet another version of his lifestyle in a second chain that he founded last year, Maha Resorts (maha means great in Sanskrit). The first offering—Mahakua-Hacienda de San Antonio, a converted 19th-century hacienda once owned by Sir James Goldsmith—opened in western Mexico last October. In a few months, the two resort chains will merge under the Amanresorts umbrella.

Zecha, who is based in Singapore, spends most of his time traveling, checking established properties and scouting for new sites. His plan is to double the number of Amanresorts in the coming years. Three are under development outside of Asia, and Zecha says he is interested in Europe and the U.S. "He has Asia tied up with Aman," says Gordon Byrn, whose firm is a major shareholder in Amanresorts' parent company. "If he stayed here, he'd be competing with himself." Now that he is back in charge, Zecha looks set to take on the world.