Yangshuo boutique hotel to spearhead new Chinese heritage hospitality brand Aurua
- Yangshuo Sugar House, with its reminders of past as a working sugar mill, is the model for a new brand of boutique heritage hotels in China
To arrive at the Yangshuo Sugar House is to be met by the enchanting smell of the osmanthus flower.
In 2006, Hong Kong investor Danny T.T. Chan and his mainland Chinese partner Yang Xiaodong acquired an abandoned sugar mill with the intention of restoring it to its former architectural glory and turning it into a heritage resort. Art was going to be a focus and there would be artists in residence.
In 2017, the property opened for business as the Alila Yangshuo, with 117 rooms, suites and villas, many of which are in a new, purpose-built block.
Since the severing of ties with the Alila brand in June 2020, the old mill has been run independently by Chan and Yang, but they have now earmarked it as the launch property of a heritage-focused hospitality brand built around “nature, terroir, presence and aura” – Aurua.
The restoration of the sugar mill was carried out with respect for its origins. When I meet Chan and his wife, Irene, in the 1969 Bar, which was the cane pressing workshop and is named for the year in which production began at the mill, he explains that the redevelopment took 11 years because they did not want to be rushed into making mistakes.