Ian Schrager on his latest trick, The Riviera Maya Edition at Kanai

Studio 54 in New York City captured something that its co-founder creative maestro Ian Schrager knows a thing or two about – the magic of theatricality when it comes to design. Following that lineage, the conjurer of iconic atmospheres has taken his experience as a nightlife impresario and applied it to his latest brainchild: The Riviera Maya Edition at Kanai.

Located on a stretch of white-sand, azure-water coastline on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, this latest property from the Edition Hotels group (opening hot on the heels of The Tokyo Edition designed by Kengo Kuma) has Schrager’s commensurate touch: sleek minimalist simplicity that feels calming, not intimidating, spacious entry halls that have looming Wonderland-high ceilings, and succulent flora blended into one expertly cared-for terrarium.

The Riviera Maya Edition at Kanai is Mexico’s first Edition hotel

Schrager, who recalled his nights at Studio 54 under the giant moon and the spoon that were once suspended from the rafters, applied those learnings to elicit the same ‘light touch’ he now continues with Edition hotels. ‘A nightclub is a very important cultural phenomenon,’ he tells Wallpaper*. ‘I’m selling the same magical experience.’

His background as a curator of Dionysian pleasure might look different in the open-air expanse of mangrove trees that cover the 620-acre nature reserve of rainforest that the Riviera Maya Edition at Kanai sits on, but it achieves the same effect. People come for an escape and unknowingly enter a fantasy of Schrager’s own making.

‘We try to make the totality of the project equal more than the sum of the individual parts,’ Schrager adds. ‘When we’re able to do that, that’s where the magic comes – that’s where the alchemy is.’ 

The new property features 182 rooms, many with their own private plunge pools, as well as the impressive ‘Sky Rooftop Villa’ the largest hotel penthouse in North America. At 2,500 sq m and featuring a mid-Olympic-size outdoor pool, it includes vast living space, a guest kitchen, and five apartment-like suites, with their own plunge pools, spas and private terraces. Meanwhile, Schrager’s Lobby Bar, a plush, jewel-box velveted lounge with three-storey-high windows and crimson drapery feels like the glamorous, hidden contrast to the serene tropicalia outside.

One of the most important elements for Schrager when it comes to design is for the resort to evoke the time and place of its surroundings – he was intent on embodying the spirit, attitude, landscape and environment of Mexico, without any of the typical clichés of touristic Mexican iconography. ‘People go to Mexico, and they want to feel like they’re in Mexico,’ he said.

The immersive and theatrical nature of Schrager’s vision was brought to life by taking inspiration from the region’s natural surroundings, as well as the ancient Mayan culture’s concept of the universe. Bathed in local white limestone lined with giant terracotta pots filled with verdant shrubbery, the massive walkways and hallways feel like entering a heavenly dream.

The culinary experiences at Kanai are no exception – chef partners Tomas Bermudez and Paco Ruano, two of Mexico’s most acclaimed and youngest restaurateurs, are in the kitchens. Ruano helms the fine-dining restaurant, Ki’is (a Mayan word that translates to ‘zest’), featuring flavours and ingredients local to the region, highlighting the Yucatan Peninsula.

At the beach club restaurant, So’ol (meaning ‘oyster’ in Mayan), Bermudez brings fresh seafood and coastal cuisine to elevated heights. Fresh oysters, buttery tuna tostada dotted with delicate spots of avocado, agua chiles that swim in bright orange vinegar, and raw fish from the Mexican waterfront bring a delicious meaning to ‘beachfront dining’.

Cenotes, naturally occurring sinkholes that expose pools of water, are an environmental feature that appears throughout the Yucatan Peninsula. The resort’s three main buildings, designed by Rockwell Group and award-winning architect Michael Edmonds of Edmonds International, are designed to emulate the circular structure of a cenote, converging in an elevated platform at its centre that serves as a yoga deck surrounded by vast pools of water.

Covered in an undulating bamboo roof that evokes the branches of the mangrove forest down below, the hotel’s spa, located directly underneath the yoga deck, looks up to a skylight that mimics the feeling of being in a cenote cavern. Inside, the circular design follows curved hallways to reveal a central foyer where hydrotherapy pools, a private outdoor pool, a Turkish hammam and an infrared room converge.

Schrager’s refined elegance and sophistication come to life at Kanai, where the hotel seems to blend into the jungle, pools appear both inside and out, and the ocean meets the sky. ‘It’s much more difficult to do something very simple and powerful,’ he says. ‘It’s supposed to touch everyone viscerally and emotionally.’

editionhotels.com