Ani Villas is a place for “togethering" - a vacation concept that entails gathering your nearest and dearest and absconding to a resort you treat like your home. Maybe it’s a wedding, big birthday, family reunion, or maybe it’s just a great vacation.

1. A beach banquet
set for the entire
party at Ani
Villas Thailand.
t r a v e l a n d l e i s u r e a s i a . c o m / o c t o b e r 2 0 1 7 21
October
2017
Travel + leisure
backstory
Ani Villas is pairing one of the hottest
trends in travel, group gathering,
with artistic altruism, proving that
the path to a great vacation might
just be a simple straight line.
By Jeninne Lee-St. John >>
Let’s Stay
Together
ClaireLeahy

2. t r a v e l a n d l e i s u r e a s i a . c o m / o c t o b e r 2 0 1 7 23
/ backstory /
22 o c t o b e r 2 0 1 7 / t r a v e l a n d l e i s u r e a s i a . c o m
“Being on your own is
overrated. We thrive when
we’re with others,” says Tim
Reynolds, founder of both
international, billions-of-
dollars-a-day trading firm Jane
Street Capital, and of Ani Villas,
a group of buy-out-only boutique
resorts with all-inclusive amenities
on four off-the-beaten-path islands.
The Ani brand was born of a combination
of Reynolds’s need for a vacation home, his
passion for art, and his long-time desire to
open schools in the developing world.
Ani Villas is a place for “togethering”—a
vacation concept that entails gathering your
nearest and dearest and absconding to a resort
you treat like your home. Maybe it’s a wedding,
big birthday, family reunion, or maybe it’s just
a great vacation. Sure, you could just book a
block of rooms in the same hotel, but there
would be strangers there, there would be bills,
there would be inhibitions. Togethering
properties offer five-star-resort rooms (some
at Ani Villas Thailand, which I visited, have
their own plunge pools) and bells and whistles
(there’s a three-loop waterslide), with common
areas (chess and checkers tables in the main
pool) and communal meals (at a long table
bowed at the center to facilitate conversation)
meant to maximize interaction and grant the
freedom to do with the place what you please.
Like at the first Ani Villas, in Anguilla,
which opened in 2011, the community ideal
spills from the resorts in Thailand, Sri Lanka
and the Dominican Republic to their prime
beneficiaries: Ani Art Academies. Every hotel
has a sister school that offers free tuition to all
its students in the hopes of not only spurring
from top:
Thailand’s iconic
Railay Bay is a
45-minute
speedboat ride
from Ani Villas;
Nakorn Sripetch
moved from the
east coast of
Thailand to Koh
Yao Noi two years
ago to study at Ani
Art Academy.
says Andrew Wise, founder of online magazine
Life, Tailored, who lives in New York City with
his wife Stephanie and has made togethering
an annual tradition. After getting married at
Ani Villas Anguilla (with vows performed by
head butler, Felix), they rented a villa in the
Dominican Republic the next year, then came
with the same group to Ani Thailand. They
were “the best weeks of our lives,” Wise says.
On an obscenely blue-sky
day on a fruit-bowl tropical island, I find myself
in a long, dark room with the windows blacked
out, sitting at an easel trying to draw lines with
a charcoal pencil. My orders: make a series of
dots at random, then connect them with as light
and as straight of lines as possible. I do this for
15 minutes, my face scrunching up, my mind
tensing, my wrist jumping. Most of my lines are
too dark, some veer off course like a drunk; the
page looks like a blind man’s connect-the-dots.
Instructor Rodney O’Dell Davis, originally
from Orlando, tells me I’m holding the pencil
wrong, points out the few lines that are “not too
bad,” and reminds me that if I were a student
here, I’d be doing this all day. And all tomorrow.
The Waichulis curriculum of hyperrealism,
created by Pennsylvania artist Anthony
Waichulis, is a deliberate practice, skills-based
process rooted in part in 19th-century French
artistic training. It’s all repetition. You do one
exercise until you’ve perfected it, then move on
to the next, which builds on all those that came
before. Straight lines are lesson No. 1 because
they’re the building blocks of everything, even
sustainable local art markets, but also ginning
out international-caliber fine artists and
creative stars in fields from textile design to
video-game development. One graduate’s
paintings pull US$25,000, and students within
a year of starting training have sold drawings
in New York for as much as US$2,000.
“Ani” is a play on a Swahili word that means
to be on a path or a journey. Reynolds thought
it was appropriate “for artists just setting out
on their journey,” he says, and “people who
wanted more than just a vacation.” Which is
how I found myself in a togethering simulation
on Koh Yao Noi, a little island halfway between
Phuket and Krabi. It’s rare that I get to spend
time alone with my brothers these days—we’re
all in different countries—so I am psyched to
bring the one who lives in Shanghai on this
trip. Jaysen flies down to meet me for a week of
what I’ve billed as an open-bar, boat-trip-filled,
karst-climbing sibling-bonding beach trip.
On arrival, we meet a Singaporean writer
and her husband. And a father and son from
Bahrain. Then a writer from Hong Kong whose
best friend has traveled from the U.S. to be her
plus-one. This is sounding more like
togethering. Then, who is this doing flips into
the pool and scampering en masse down to the
beach to take out the paddleboards? Americans
from L.A., an actor and five friends (some also
actors, natch), all on their first visit to
Thailand, all managing to both brim with
excitement about their island adventures and
look completely at home on the property.
Well, of course. Celebrities in their need for
privacy were togethering pioneers. Reynolds
says professional athletes are a distinctive
chunk of Ani guests. Justin Bieber made the
news this year when he booked out the Lodge
at The Hills outside Queenstown, after his
Auckland concert. The six-bedroom Lodge
includes a chef, grass tennis court, heated pool
and access to the golf course that hosts the New
Zealand Open, for NZ$28,000 a night in low
season (with a five-night minimum).
Ani Villas Thailand is US$7,700 a night in
low season for 10 bedrooms (with a three-night
minimum). Sure, that’s not an insignificant
amount of money, but it’s also not a price tag
only accessible to the super rich. “Traveling
with friends and staying at villas like Ani is
actually more affordable than traveling alone,”
spheres, a fact that blows
my mind. O’Dell Davis
nods—“spheres kicked
my ass”—but waves off
my wonder. “You learn to
break things down into
the simplest forms.”
“Being on an island is
conducive to education,”
he says. “There are not a lot
of distractions.” That’s a
dubious claim to a beach bum
like me, especially considering
how impressive the arrival at Ani
Art Academy is. The vista under the
grand peaked roof looks across verdant rice
paddies, low rolling hills and out to the sea
beyond. But this is intended as a source of
fleeting inspiration at most, for the students
will spend 3½ years (two years of drawing,
18 months of painting) minimum, eight hours
a day average, in the classrooms under a
stringent program of hyperrealism.
It’s not exactly the art form you’d expect
springing up on an Asian isle. But take a peek
over the shoulder of one student, Yos. The
40-year-old from a nearby province has been
studying here since its opening two years ago
and is creating his own version of a
photograph of a traditional Thai building in
foliage. Glancing between the photo and his
drawing, it’s impossible to know which is
which. In fact, in some ways, his drawing looks
more like a photo. It’s uncanny.
“I don’t believe in talent; I believe in innate
ability,” O’Dell Davis tells me, explaining that
he admits students based on personality and
dedication, not whether they’ve ever held a
brush. “It all comes down to work ethic. Most
people think artists live a bohemian lifestyle,
get up at noon, splash some paint on the wall,
call it a day. The reality is most artists clock 30
Clockwise from
top: Ani Villas Sri
Lanka; founder
Tim Reynolds; Ani
Villas Thailand;
that sunset glow
in Phang Nga Bay,
Thailand.
fromtop:ClaireLeahy;courtesyofaniartacademies.
opposite,clockwisefromtop:courtesyofAni(3);ClaireLeahy

3. claireleahy(3)
24 o c t o b e r 2 0 1 7 / t r a v e l a n d l e i s u r e a s i a . c o m
to 60 hours a week. When they really see what
a solitary life it is, they say it’s not for them.”
The day I visit happens to be the first day of
class for Robyn, an Australian who learned
about Ani Art Academy when her daughter had
the first wedding ever at Ani Villas Thailand. A
self-described dabbler, Robyn found herself
“uninspired with my own artwork,” so sold her
house and moved to Thailand this year. That
plus the three pages of lines she’d drawn so far
seems like dedication to me.
Before we met our fellow
guests at Ani Villas, the jovial property manager
Chaya told me and Jaysen that everyone already
had been engaging in a bunch of prosecco-filled
raucous antics. “You mean, together?” I asked,
still not getting it. But it is quickly apparent that
everyone’s in this party ensemble—including
the staff, who are plentiful and discreet. If the
bartender’s away, feel free to jump behind the
/ backstory /
You could just book a block of
hotel rooms, but there would be
strangers... bills... inhibitions
clockwise from
top left: Cooking
class with chef
Yao; fairy-lit magic
in Thailand;
togethering by
boat, in Thailand.
bar and whip up some piña coladas or pop some
bubbly. It’s all included anyway.
So is the spa, where nearly everyone gets
a treatment per day. Chef Yao makes delicious
classic Thai food served family style—and,
since he’s also a trained florist, he can render
a fairy-lit barbecue banquet magical with
100 chains of hand-strung flowers. (Guests
may, of course, bring their own chefs, or make
special requests. Ani has flown rabbis down
from Bangkok to make the kitchen kosher.)
The art from the Academy that Yos and
other students are creating will perfectly
complement the natural beauty here. The
porches of our suites, the lawns, library and
pool all point towards the mossy, jagged teeth
of Phang Nga Bay, and it’s tempting to just lie
on a sunbed all day, but there are adventures to
be had. “Hollywood,” which my brother takes
to calling the Americans collectively and
affectionately, have already fallen in love with
the beasts at Phuket Elephant Sanctuary, and
earned war wounds from learning to scale a
coconut tree. Their enthusiasm is infectious,
and it’s no chore to share a speedboat to Krabi
to climb Railay Bay’s iconic rocks, or long-tail
boats deep into Phang Nga to examine karsts
up close. In fact, when one of the two long-tail
engines stalls, forcing us to do a mid-ocean
transfer of troops, everyone piles onto one
vessel shouting, “Yay! Together again... Err,
don’t forget that other cooler of beers.”
That Koh Yao Noi is still such a relatively
remote island helps promote togethering. And
while I wish Ani luck creating a strong local
arts community to start galleries, I also hope
the island’s sleepy soul and the hotel’s inclusive
spirit can withstand a tide of tourism. By our
last night at Ani Villas, I’m pleasantly
surprised at how sad I am to part ways with all
of our co-togetherers. “You guys really screwed
with my brother-sister bonding trip,” I tell
Hollywood, wondering how five days flew by so
fast. It’s true: being alone is overrated.
Ani Villas Thailand, Koh Yao Noi, sleeps 20 in
10 bedrooms. Rates range from US$5,500 for six
bedrooms in low season to US$15,000 for 10
bedrooms in peak season. All bookings give you
complete buy-out of the resort with all-inclusive
food, drinks, spa, cooking classes, laundry and
round-trip transfers from Phuket or Krabi
airports. Visit anivillas.com for information on
this resort and the properties in Sri Lanka,
Anguilla and Dominican Republic, and
aniartacademies.org to learn about the schools.