In 2016, it was announced that the Six Senses — a resort brand known for its often-secluded locations, focus on wellness, and suites that book for thousands of dollars a night — would open its first New York City location. The idea was to debut a 437-room hotel in the XI, HFZ Capital’s Bjarke Ingels–designed towers on the High Line, with “pampering wellness programs focusing on everything from sleep and nutrition to meditation,” via the Wall Street Journal. These were to have included a magnesium pool, a holistic anti-aging center, and a vibroacoustic meditation dome. But construction stalled for almost two years amid the fallout from HFZ’s implosion — a saga involving everything from overpaying for XI’s land to the messy schism between HFZ’s founder and managing director. In late 2021, developer Steve Witkoff partnered with Access Industries and Monroe Capital Access to buy the twisty towers for $900 million at a foreclosure auction. And this summer, it was announced that Six Senses would be replaced by the third location of Faena, the resort hotel whose Miami Beach location contains a 25-karat gold Damien Hirst sculpture of a wooly mammoth.
It seemed like the Six Senses wasn’t going to open at all in New York. But last week, a buyer rumored to be the resort paid $13.75 million for a 236-acre biodynamic farm in Rhinebeck and the handful of quaint, historic buildings on it. This will be the third time the property changed hands in the past few years — formerly the site of a “secret” hotel called the Dutchess, it was listed for $8.5 million in 2019 and spent two years on the market before some “socially conscious entrepreneurs” bought it last year as a family retreat. They told the Post that they hadn’t been planning to sell but finally said yes after the buyer kept throwing money at them. “We said no at least three times, then named a ridiculous price,” said the husband.
When asked by the Post about the project’s new location, Six Senses gave the kind of vague non-denial that is essentially just a yes: “No Hudson Valley project has been announced, so Six Senses is unable to comment.”
