Birthplace
Orange County, California
Education
California State Polytechnic University, Pomona and Harvard University
Genetic influences
Dad was a research engineer for Garrett AiResearch and NASA and could design and make anything asked of him from spaceships to dentures. Mum and Dad were English immigrants to Canada and then to California, bringing with them a love of vegetable gardening and animal husbandry.
Earliest mentors
Geoffrey Bawa, a Sri Lankan architect; Ed Tuttle, who was instrumental in creating the first Aman in Phuket; and Lek Bunnag, my classmate at Harvard, who taught me all that I really know about architecture—a great master of hotel design.
Seeds of landscape architecture
I’ve always had a passion to draw and create things, and as an expert gardener by the age of 9, how could I have any other choice?
Hospitality satisfaction
The ability to work with various communities to make their lives better.
Favorite project
Hands down the Shinta Mani Angkor in Siem Reap, as we have used the hotel as a vehicle to help thousands of less fortunate Cambodians with housing, free dentistry, water wells, starting small businesses, and distributing little known agricultural crops for villagers to grow and reproduce.
Environmental affinity
For me, being a lover of all things natural from a very early age, all of this ‘sustainability filibustering’ is just about the most common sense. Just leave Mother Nature alone, which is impossible, so protect what wilderness is left, even by building an army if necessary.
Shinta Mani Wild Bensley Collection
I purchased the logging rights to 1,400 acres of Cambodian forest in the middle of a national park. [It is now] a luxurious 15-tent high-end, low-impact, high-yield product—a wilderness sanctuary that will remain wild for at least the length of my 99-year lease.
The new luxury
This might sound strange, but it is a private—and I mean stroll-about-naked private—outside garden space. Where can you do that in a hotel?
Reasons to love life in Asia
My Thai husband of 30 years; working with agrarian folks who still know how to use their hands to create; being able to help people in need on a daily basis; creating a design family in Bangkok
and Bali.
