Amansara
A 1962 royal guest villa inside its own wall, ten minutes from the gate of Angkor.
Amansara stands in Siem Reap, on the road to Angkor, inside the wall of Villa Apsara - a guest villa built in 1962 for King Norodom Sihanouk, with twelve low chalets on it. Aman bought the property in 2002, rebuilt it from old photographs and opened it in December of that year. There are twenty-four suites now, twelve of them with a pool of six metres by five, and every suite has a courtyard of its own. The entrance to Angkor Wat is about ten minutes away and the airport fifteen.
The estate publishes no area, and this record carries none, which on a town plot matters more than it does on an island. What it does publish is the wall. The main pool runs seventeen metres and a second, twenty-five-metre lap pool stands behind a screen six metres high - a wall built inside a walled garden to shut out a town that is ten minutes from one of the most visited monuments on earth. That is the whole territorial argument here, and it is made in masonry rather than in acreage.
The wall is the holding. No area is published, and on a plot in a working town the enclosure does the work an acreage would do elsewhere. A six-metre screen around a lap pool states the case.
The ground is a 1962 building's ground. Twelve royal chalets set this boundary sixty years ago, and the operator rebuilt inside it from old photographs rather than drawing any new line of its own.
Who it is not for
Amansara is wrong for anyone who counts acres, since the estate publishes none and the plot is a town one. It is wrong for travellers who want a landscape, as the view here is inward to courtyards and walls. It is wrong for anyone wanting to be far from crowds, because Angkor is ten minutes off and is visited accordingly. For a walled holding of the same kind in a city, Hotel du Couvent keeps two and a half acres inside the old town of Nice.
Sources
- The operator's own copy deck - built in 1962 as Villa Apsara, a royal retreat, once King Norodom Sihanouk's guest villa, designed by the French architect Laurent Mondet; the original build had twelve low-slung chalets; twenty-four suites today, twelve with private pools of six by five metres, every suite with a private courtyard; described as a walled garden estate; a seventeen-metre main pool and a twenty-five-metre lap pool behind a six-metre wall; about ten minutes from the entrance to Angkor Wat and fifteen from Siem Reap airport; Aman acquired the property in 2002, rebuilt it from old photographs and opened it as Amansara in December 2002. No site area is published.
- NOT PUBLISHED - the site area. None is carried.
Verification
- Official source
- Not yet checked
- Sources disagree
- CONFLICT of attribution - the operator's own material names Laurent Mondet as the architect of the 1962 villa. Trade and guide coverage widely names Vann Molyvann instead. The operator's attribution is carried and the alternative is recorded as unresolved; no second primary source was reached.
- Property confirmation
- Pending
- Last verified
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Booking
Private Resorts arranges each stay on request, quoting the rates available for the resort and dates. No benefit should be assumed unless it is confirmed in writing for the individual reservation.
Request a proposalClassified by The Resort Collection House · The Register · Edition 2026 · LHL-E-040
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