Janu Turks and Caicos: The Hotel, the Lawsuit Next Door, and What It Means for Amanyara

Janu is Aman's second brand: the sociable one, with the restaurants and the gym where Aman has the silence. Janu Tokyo opened in 2024, and in June 2025 Aman Group announced that the brand's first home in the Americas would be Turks and Caicos, on the northwest coast of Providenciales. That is the same coast, the same nature reserve and, as it turns out, the next parcel along from Amanyara, the Aman that has been there since 2006.

Amanyara's owners did not take it well. In July 2026 they won leave from the islands' Supreme Court to challenge the approvals behind the Janu project, and the same week a holding company for the resort's beneficial owner signalled it might end Aman's management of Amanyara altogether. Travel sites have been calling it a feud. We are going to stick to what the parties themselves and the court have put on record, say plainly where that record stops, and then tell you how to plan a Turks and Caicos stay this winter while it plays out.

What Janu says about Janu Turks and Caicos

The brand's own page lists the hotel as coming soon, with no opening year. Aman Group's announcement placed it "on the northwest coast of Providenciales, one of the most picturesque settings in the Caribbean", within "the tranquil shores of an 18,000-acre nature reserve, bordering the white-sand beaches and rocky coves of Northwest Point Marine National Park". If that description sounds familiar, it is because Aman uses nearly the same words for Amanyara.

Vlad Doronin, Aman Group's chairman and chief executive, said in the announcement: "Turks and Caicos is an unrivalled destination in the Caribbean and as part of our strategic vision for Janu, it will be the first home for the brand in the Americas." The release closed with "further information about Janu Turks and Caicos will be released in due course", and sixteen months later the page is the extent of it.

The published facts

From janu.com and the June 2025 announcement. Nothing here comes from the court filings or from reporting.

• Rooms 80 bedrooms, plus 12 beachfront villas sold as Janu private residences, "the majority located directly on the beach with lush jungle landscape behind".
• Dining Seven restaurants, with "several culinary concepts and a beach club" forming, in Aman's words, "the beating heart of the resort".
• The pool A 50-metre swimming pool.
• Wellness A Janu Spa and Wellness centre with six treatment rooms that the brand calls "one of the largest wellness destinations on the island", with an IV Lounge, a Meditation Studio and an Apothecary Bar, group classes and separate spaces for training, beauty and recovery.
• The pipeline Turks and Caicos joined "a global pipeline of 12 destinations" for Janu, alongside Dubai, Al Marjan Island, Montenegro and Saudi Arabia.
• Not published An opening date, rates, the architects, or the precise boundary with Amanyara.

What the court has said

Amanyara is not owned by Aman. Like most Amans it is owned by a third party and run by Aman under a management agreement. Its owners are three Turks and Caicos companies, Caicos Resorts Ltd., CR Hotel Ltd. and Caicos Resorts Villas Ltd., and the court record names Mortimer Sackler as their beneficial owner. He is a member of the family that owned Purdue Pharma, which is the detail that has put this story on the front page of outlets that do not usually cover hotel planning disputes.

On 27 July 2026, Mr Justice Chris Selochan of the Supreme Court of the Turks and Caicos Islands granted the three companies leave to apply for judicial review, finding that their application raised arguable legal issues that should go to a full hearing. The decisions under challenge, as reported from the order by the islands' Sun newspaper, are the Physical Planning Board's referral of planning application PR 18756 to the Governor in Cabinet, Cabinet's approval of that application, and the Board's conditional approval of a second application, PR 18942. The developer is Northwest TCI Holdings Ltd., and the project before the planners is an 84-acre, $250 million hotel-and-villas scheme at Northwest Point. The owners argue the approvals conflict with the Physical Planning Act and the National Physical Development Plan and gave insufficient weight to environmental and planning considerations.

Leave is a threshold, not a verdict. It means the court will hear the case, not that the approvals are suspended, and no hearing date has been published. Bloomberg reported on 5 August that a holding company for Mortimer D.A. Sackler had signalled plans to terminate Aman's contract at Amanyara. Neither Aman Group nor the owners have published a statement, and we are not going to put words in either mouth.

What the government has said

The Turks and Caicos Islands Government, in the Speech from the Throne delivered on 8 September 2026, listed Janu among five Cabinet-approved developments it describes as advancing, alongside Royal Reef, Dellis Cay, Corinthia and Grace Retail and Residences. That is the government's position as of this autumn: the project is approved and proceeding, with the judicial review pending.

What it means if you want to go to Amanyara

Here is the first-party fact that matters more than any of the above for a traveller: Aman's own page lists Amanyara as temporarily closed until 1 November 2026, for enhancements. So nobody is staying there this autumn regardless of the lawsuit. From November the resort is scheduled to reopen as an Aman, and nothing on record changes that for the coming winter: a management agreement does not end overnight, and a notice of intent is not a termination.

Our honest counsel for a 2026-27 festive or spring stay is to book Amanyara as normal, on a rate you can cancel, through a channel that will tell you if anything changes. That last part is the point of using us. If the branding were ever to change, the pavilions, the reef and the staff would still be there; what would change is the Aman partner perks a booking carries, and we would tell you before the hotel did.

Where to stay in Turks and Caicos in the meantime

Until Amanyara reopens, and for anyone who would rather be on Grace Bay anyway, these are the Providenciales hotels we book most. All of them are Leading Hotels of the World members, so our Leaders Club benefits ride on the direct rate. The full ranking is in our Turks and Caicos guide.

Grace Bay Club

Grace Bay Club is the 1993 original on the beach that every ranking puts first in the world, split into an adults' wing and a family wing so that each gets the version of the island it came for. It is the safest first booking in the islands.

Wymara Resort + Villas

Wymara is the contemporary end of Grace Bay: design-forward rooms, strong restaurants and a villa estate on Turtle Tail for groups who want staff and a private pool. The closest thing on the bay to what Janu is promising.

Rock House

Rock House put Riviera-style cliff cottages above a private cove on the north shore, and it is the most distinctive newcomer in the islands. It is also the nearest thing to Amanyara's seclusion while Amanyara is shut.

The Strand

The Strand is villa-resort living on quiet Cooper Jack Bay, the privacy play for families who want a house with a hotel behind it.

Why book Turks and Caicos, and Aman, through Biirdee

Biirdee is a luxury travel agency in Aman's preferred-partner circle, and Aman is the brand our clients ask for most. You pay the same rate as aman.com; the hotel attaches VIP flagging, a property credit, upgrade priority, and early check-in and late check-out priority where available. Aman pays our commission out of the rate you would pay anyway. One concierge on WhatsApp handles dining, transfers and changes before and during the trip, and watches the booking for you.

That last point is what a story like this one is really about. A hotel in a dispute with its brand is still a hotel, but it is one whose terms can change, and a direct booking leaves you to find that out from a press release. Book with a desk that reads the court list. When Janu Turks and Caicos finally loads dates, that desk is also where the first season will show up first.