A 350-hectare river valley in the Cardamom Mountains of south-western Cambodia, in a corridor between the Southern Cardamom, Kirirom and Bokor national parks. The designer Bill Bensley and his Cambodian partner Sokoun Chanpreda won the land at auction, where it had been offered as a logging concession, and opened fifteen tents on it in December 2018 after what the house calls a seven-year planning period. It is this register’s clearest case of a house bought as a bid against extraction.
The house
The founding act was a bid, not a lease. BENSLEY’s own account of the valley is that Bensley “first bought the land with his friend Sokoun Chandpreda, hoping to save it from poaching and logging”. The fuller version, printed in Prestige in March 2019, is that the ground “was originally put on auction for a logging concession” and that Bensley and his Cambodian business partner “won the bid with the intention to conserve it”. The valley runs to 350 hectares; the national parks around it, by the same account, stretch over four million. The house dates its siting to a seven-year planning period.
Fifteen tents went up on stilts along a 1.5-kilometre stretch of river and waterfalls, fourteen with one bedroom and one with two, each of about 100 square metres. Trade press announced an opening of 1 November 2018; the camp in fact took its first guests that December, with the designer reported to have put US$16 million into it. The tariff is the conservation instrument: the house says its partnership with Wildlife Alliance “supports a team of rangers who patrol the Cardamom Forest”, and describes the Cambodian NGO as one “whose armed rangers patrol the area”. It is operated by Shinta Mani Hotels under the Bensley Collection name.
What distinguishes it
The land was won at a logging auction Prestige reported in March 2019 that the valley “was originally put on auction for a logging concession” and that Bensley and Sokoun Chanpreda “won the bid with the intention to conserve it”. The register holds several houses standing on concessions retired by someone else. This is one whose first act was the bid itself.
Three hundred and fifty hectares against four million The camp’s own ground is 350 hectares, or 865 acres by its own conversion. The Southern Cardamom, Kirirom and Bokor national parks around it stretch over four million hectares. The claim the house makes is not that it protects the Cardamoms but that it pays for the patrols that do.
Fifteen keys was a stated ceiling, not a constraint Bensley is quoted as saying “We chose to go with just 15 keys for low environmental impact”. The split is fourteen one-bedroom tents and one with two bedrooms, each about 100 square metres, strung along 1.5 kilometres of river. The number has not changed since opening.
Everything is in the rate, including the spa The house lists “Meals, drinks, activities, transfers, unlimited spa treatments, wellness activities including yoga and meditation” as covered. The helicopter is the stated exclusion. The minimum stay is three nights.
Two opening dates are on the record CLADglobal reported in 2018 that the camp “will open on 1 November 2018”, with fourteen one-bedroom tents and one two-bedroom tent. Coconuts, writing on 18 December 2018 after an interview with the designer, said “The camp opens Friday”. Both stand; neither has been withdrawn.
Three nights is the minimum and the approach is a road transfer from Phnom Penh or Sihanoukville, so a short stay is not available and neither is a beach or a choice of restaurants. The programme includes going out with Wildlife Alliance’s armed rangers on patrol, which is not a sanitised activity. With meals, drinks, activities, transfers and unlimited spa treatments already in the rate, there is nothing to decline and no way to pay less.
Signature rooms and dates
Competitive landscape
Sources
What the entry rests on, read 13 October 2026. Each reference records the facts it supports, so a disputed line can be traced to the account it came from.