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Thailand’s Phulay BayOverlooking the Andaman Sea, the Ritz-Carlton Reserve Summons Serene LuxuriesArchitecture and Interior Design by Lek Bunnag Text by Susan Sheehan | Photography by Robert McLeod

Twenty-first-century hoteliers are taking to heart Ralph Waldo Emerson’s 19th-century precept:

“Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door.” The luxu-ries that lure visitors to today’s five-star hotels in urban settings include suites with grand pianos, cinemas and well-stocked wine cabinets, while those in secluded cor-ners of the world often offer 180-degree ocean or treetop views, plunge pools and 24-7 butlers.

Guests who come to Phulay Bay, a new Ritz-Carlton property set on the shores of the Andaman Sea in southern Thailand, enter the resort over a stepping-stone walkway that leads to a redwood pavilion. Known as the greeting pavilion, it appears to float above a reflecting pond and is sur-rounded by four candlelit walls. Bangkok-based architect Lek Bunnag designed it “to create a strong and memorable sense of arrival.” It is here that guests are welcomed by the manager and by their private but-

lers before being escorted to their villas. The resort’s 54 accommodations are

spacious, but the six Royal Beach villas are the grandest. In the bedroom of one such villa, Lek Bunnag, who has focused on resort design for the past two decades, has placed a supersize bed as well as a vast sofa. Behind a tall freestanding redwood partition, which doubles as a headboard, is a writing desk. The villa is surrounded by views—private gardens on three sides,

This past summer Ritz-Carlton debuted its first Reserve property, an extension of the brand devoted to more intimately scaled resorts, on Phulay Bay in Krabi, on the southwest coast of Thailand. Guests enter the 54-villa hotel, designed by Bangkok-based architect Lek Bunnag, through a redwood pavilion surrounded by frangipani and 20-foot-high purple walls illuminated with thousands of white candles.

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continued�from�page�2the open sea and distant horizon on the fourth—and has a daybed on the veranda. Villas set higher on the hillside also offer what Bunnag calls moon terraces.

Large mirrors in the Reserve villas, the second most commodious, reflect and bring the landscape in. The silk and cot-ton fabrics in all the villas are soft creams and tans; their floors, tabletops, tubs, ba-sins, niches and bed and sofa plinths are terrazzo. Contrasting notes are struck by gold and deep purple stucco walls and by the vivid hues in Lanna-style paintings, done by a team of artists in Lek’s firm. The paintings are different, but all de-pict playful scenes of young people going about their daily lives in the countryside. “The two primary purposes of the resort are to meet current standards of comfort and to be unmistakably Thai,” Lek says.

Guests may order breakfast in their lodgings at four o’clock in the afternoon and dinner at four o’clock in the morning, and some scarcely leave their villas, but most venture out to the beach, the vast pool and the lushly planted grounds, which are punctuated by fountains, streams and low waterfalls. The thatch-roofed sunset pa-

Above: At Jampoon, one of the hotel’s three restaurants, Bunnag’s team of artists created a vivid mural to help visually define the chef’s table. The scene is painted in the traditional Lanna, or northern Thai, style and depicts the preparation of a feast. below: A private dining pavilion over-looks the bay and a cluster of coral-fringed islands on the horizon. “It’s always our intention that the architecture be understated and unintrusive, allowing the terrain and vegetation to remain the dominant aspects,” he says.

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Above: Designed by the Bangkok firm Architects 49, the spa offers 12 treatment rooms, the most exclusive of which caters to couples and has a separate entrance through a secluded garden. below: In a Royal Beach villa bedroom, the coolness of the terrazzo flooring is countered by the warmth of mai daeng, an Asian redwood. Like the keyhole cutout in the headboard, the pierced-metal lanterns and low sofa laden with pillows add a distinctly Moroccan feel. All of the resort’s furnishings were designed by Bunnag.

vilion, a bar and lounge at the edge of the beach, is indeed a perfect place to watch vibrant sunsets. Three restaurants on the premises offer traditional Thai cooking and freshly caught fish. Many guests en-joy elephant trekking, boat trips to nearby islands and to Tiger Cave Temple, a Bud-dhist monastery, where monkeys at its entrance appreciate handouts of bananas.

At the end of their stays, guests pass through a sequence of courtyards that lead to the departure pavilion, with a flower-shaped opening, inspired by a decorative Lanna motif, in a 20-foot-tall purple wall. One family, guests in June 2010, have al-ready booked their villa for February 2011 and look forward to being welcomed back by a friendly staff and stunning architec-ture, illuminated by 2,000 candles. l

Phulay Bay A Ritz-Carlton Reserve 66-07-562-8111www.ritzcarlton.com

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