“I felt a strong need to come by here today,” yogini and healer Diana Bourel announces as she enters the spa at the Hotel Guanahani on St. Barts. “Now I know why.” Bourel and I met years ago on Anguilla, but I did not contact her when I arrived on St. Barts. The trade […]
Like most people who are diagnosed with cancer, Oklahoma City real estate developer Warren Thomas was shocked when he received the news four years ago that he had the disease. “I work hard, I play hard, and I’m a type A personality,” he acknowledges, “but I’m also an avid runner and have always been vigilant […]
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After opening their 58-room Lodge at Woodloch in the Poconos town of Hawley, Pa., last summer, Ginny and John Lopis reminisced about the first American destination spas. Twenty years ago, when the couple established their consulting business, advising spa owners on everything from architecture and design to treatment menus, this country was home to only […]
Four decades is a long tenure in any position, but in the hospitality industry, such a stint is a true anomaly. Still, Kurt Wachtveitl, general manager of the Oriental Bangkok since 1967, has no plans to move on anytime soon. “Thailand—its people, its food, its culture—gets under your skin,” says Wachtveitl, a native of Bavaria. […]
When Cape Grace Hotel in Cape Town, South Africa, tapped Rosalia Cranfield to serve as the director of the spa it was planning to open, she welcomed the opportunity to create “something private and beautiful that would also tell the healing story of South Africa,” she says. Before unveiling the spa in November 2003, […]
Ten years ago, when John Cancro worked as a commercial leasing broker in his native New York City, he was a self-described “meaner, nastier person.” Moving out of the city to Taos, N.M., helped to improve his disposition, he says, but his discovery of yoga completed his transition to the kinder, more reflective soul that […]
As serious golfers seek any advice or techniques that will help reduce their handicaps, spas are responding with specialized therapies and services aimed at improving not only physical performance but your head game as well. Aboard the exclusive floating community The World of ResidenSea, half of the residents are either avid golfers or interested […]
As I sit swathed in a loincloth, smoking a cigarette made from a mixture of turmeric and sweet flag powder, I realize the Tamara Ayurveda Spa at the Taj Malabar hotel in Cochin, India, is a total departure from the fluff-and-buff spas that have become required amenities for premium hotels and resorts. Buoyed by visitors interested […]
“It’s okay to surrender,” says spa director Barbara Schultz, as she tucks a chenille blanket around me. I have spent the past two hours cocooned inside the Montage Resort and Spa in Laguna Beach, Calif., sitting naked in hot steam, dipping into ice-cold water, resting under mounds of blankets, and then repeating the process a […]
Como Shambhala Retreat, Cocoa Island A wholehearted approach to health. Hotelier Christina Ong does not want people to think of her newest venture, Como Shambhala Retreat, Cocoa Island, as a spa—at least not in the traditional fluff-and-buff sense. Modeled after its flagship spa on Parrot Cay in the Turks and Caicos, Como Hotels and Resorts’ […]
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