Skift Take
Place what are essentially glass boxes amid breathtaking scenery. That's the "landscape design" trend in hotels. A great case in point is the new luxury hotel Ambiente Sedona.
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When Jennifer May and her father Michael Stevenson remodeled their restaurant in Sedona, they couldn’t get over how much people loved the view, which overlooks some of the most iconic red rock formations in Arizona.
“We would go have dinner there, and we would watch all of these guests that would come into the restaurant, and the first thing they would do was go outside and take a picture with that backdrop,” said May. "Because it looks like a mural — like it’s not even real."
So one day, Stevenson came back from a dentist appointment and told May that their dentist offered to sell him the land right next to their restaurant, which was zoned for a hotel.
Eight years later, the 40-room Ambiente Sedona is now open, as of February. The owners overcame hurdles from extensive efforts to preserve the land — rather than level it — and supply chain delays because of Covid. As an ultra-luxury property, it's now typ