REST & RESPITE

TRADITIONAL LUXURY SPACES like grand hotels and Michelin-starred restaurants were always designed to impress people.

That said, millennials and Gen Zs are already beginning to express a yearning for authenticity and are growing uncomfortable with the old luxury experience. For Gen Zers, value is created through social currency and memorable experiences – and Villa Samadhi delivers a heck of an experience.

“Barefoot luxury” is an expression that encapsulates the luxury of effortlessness. At Villa Samadhi, people in beachwear mix and mingle with people in smart loungewear in a beautiful and relaxed setting. It provides an effortless experience where everyone can be the way they want to be and experience luxury and comfort at the highest level. There is no pressure or feeling of intimidation.

The property that Villa Samadhi Singapore now occupies was built in the 1920s and served as the quarters of the artillery garrison of the British Army, which was based at Labrador Park then. Over the decades, the property became a boys’ hostel and later, a halfway house before it laid abandoned for over 10 years. It was during that time Federico Asaro, the then 48-yearold Italian founder and CEO of hospitality group Samadhi Retreats, took over the site.

Accessible via a lone two-carriage road, the 20-room Villa Samadhi is designed as the perfect hideaway, perched on a hillslope in the heart of Labrador Park, part of the bigger Labrador Nature Reserve. Samadhi Retreats’ first hotel in Singapore is an escape from the city-state’s dense urban jungle. Icing on top, the colonial retreat is surrounded by greenery, offers exceptional Thai-Burmese food and doesn’t have the best cellular connectivity in the area.