Amangiri: Best Small Hotel in America?

Could American’s best spa be hiding in Southern Utah’s high desert?

For most of my life, I’d heard about the mystical landscape of the upper Southwest, a place I’d never visited because houseboats and Winnebagos just weren’t my thing. But that’s all different now.

After more than a decade of effort, Aman Resorts has quietly opened what might be the most spectacular small hotel in America: Amangiri. Built with local white stone and dust-colored concrete, the 34-suite resort magically disappears into a 600-acre expanse of former Navajo wilderness in Southern Utah. The kitchen—the heart of the resort—centers around a wood-burning oven, and floor-to-ceiling windows substitute for art—with breathtaking high-desert views of tumbleweed-dotted valleys and towering plateaus. A 25,000-square-foot spa butts up against a stratified escarpment, unfolding in a series of indoor/outdoor pavilions for meditating and bathing, including a cavelike steam chamber. In discreet, walnut-lined treatment rooms, a local healer delivers Navajo therapies based on the balancing principles of earth, wind, fire and water, while natural light therapy is supplied by an ever-changing desert sky.