hotel visionary Ian Schrager – considered by many to be the founder of the boutique hotel category – has opened his first hotel in China, the Sanya Edition.

Located on Hainan Island, just off the coast of Southern China, the hotel is the latest addition to Edition hotels – the brand Schrager conceived in a partnership with Marriott International – and includes a 2,000sq m (21,528sq ft), two-storey spa with extensive gardens.

Tracy Lee of TLee Spas consulted on the spa, which is focused on a connection to nature and and features an approach to beauty, wellness and wellbeing that is attuned to both modern living and local customs, with treatments using Asian healing traditions and global therapies.

The spa features a total of 11 treatment rooms and suites, as well as extensive heat and water therapies and an expansive relaxation area with tea bar, massage lounge and seating and resting areas.

A massage lounge with four semi-private treatment stations encourage guests to sample an assortment of massage, bodywork and wellness services in a “casual and spontaneous” manner.

Each of the 11 private treatment rooms features custom millwork and on-demand music content. They include five single rooms, three multipurpose suites with private changing area, indoor/outdoor steam shower and lounge; and three spa pavilions, which are free-standing spa retreats secluded within lush landscaping, which also include an outdoor whirlpool and Thai massage cabana.

Additional facilities include a retail boutique; male grooming lounge with traditional barber chair offerings and express services; women’s beauty lounge with a lively social setting for hair, nail and makeup services; and a fitness studio.

Flowing from each of the changing rooms, the hydrothermal lounge provides an interactive contrast bathing circuit of heat/cooling/water features and resting areas, including specialty showers, aromatherapy steam room, sauna, hydrotherapy pool, and both indoor and outdoor resting areas.

Before and after treatments, guests can interact, reflect and unwind in the relaxation lounge, which features different themed zones of social, private or deep rest.

Anchoring the relaxation lounge, a contemporary tea bar serves signature and custom-blended tonics, infusions and light refreshments.

Designed by SCDA Architects and set within 50 acres of landscaped tropical greenery, the 512-bedroom Sanya Edition features landscapes by Madison Cox and interiors by I.S.C. Design Studio/CAP Atelier, and was inspired by the sea. It also includes an additional 17 hotel villas nestled into a terraced hillside.

“The Sanya Edition was conceived for the China of today and the China of tomorrow,” said Schrager. “The resort is a unique sophisticated vision and embodiment of a cosmopolitan China for all the world to see.”

A 20,000sq m (215,278sq ft) 'private ocean' framed by a series of teak pavilions overlooks the South China Sea and is the property’s focal point. To maintain the private ocean, 10 million gallons of sea water is pumped in from the South China Sea throughout the day, recycling once every 32 hours. A series of age-specific pools in different sizes are dotted around the private ocean, each with its own programme of activities.

The hotel’s signature seafood restaurant, Xian Hai By The Sea, is located in the private ocean and reachable by boat. Guests can dine atop illuminated floating platforms and choose their dinner from a custom-designed live fishpond.

The hotel also includes a meditation forest, climbing rock wall, Mahjong rooms, private bumper car rink, waterslides and a treehouse.