Word: suremain
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Housed in a beautifully restored, 105-year-old building - complete with colorful tiled floors, carved screens and shutters, and a spectacular wood-beam roof - the Chinese House is the brainchild of Alexis de Suremain, a French expatriate who is also behind some of Phnom Penh's best boutique hotels (including the 20-room Pavilion, just 100 meters from the Royal Palace, and the new Blue Lime). The dramatic, lantern-lit and antique-strewn interior is home to a downstairs exhibition space and an upstairs lounge, where guests enjoy designer drinks and finger food. (See pictures of Shanghai...
...Cambodian citizenship in 1930. Tan's family was forced to give up the house when the Khmer Rouge seized power in the 1970s, but in 2007 the property was returned to family hands when it was purchased by one of Tan's descendants, who then leased it to de Suremain. This sort of happy ending is all too rare in Phnom Penh...
Whoever says money can't buy happiness hasn't shelled out for their own beach in Cambodia. Before the crew of the Sea Breeze can even drop her anchor, Alexis de Suremain is in the water, swimming straight for 90 yards of white sand: his 90 yards of white sand. A wall of tangled jungle rises to the east; to the west, the sun sinks into its own reflection over the Gulf of Thailand. "See that?" de Suremain asks, waving at the sun as it bisects the beach view. "Right down the middle...
...goes according to plan, these 35 acres (14 hectares) of sand, rock and jungle will in a few years host a plush eco-resort of palm trees and solar-powered bungalows. De Suremain, a French expat who runs guesthouses in Phnom Penh, says he combed Cambodia's shores for three years before he settled on building his resort on the remote island of Koh Rong. "I wanted something where you couldn't hear karaoke, where the neighbor's dogs don't bark and where the cocks aren't crowing in the morning," he says. "I wanted something completely isolated...
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