by Bert Archer
Last updated: 9:30 AM ET, Mon September 28, 2026
As we saw a few weeks ago, the new Aman Nai Lert in Bangkok is a knockout of design, especially if you're looking to make an impression.
But the fuller success is the Mason, in Pattaya, one of Thailand's best-known beach resorts, an hour and a half or two south of Bangkok on the Gulf of Thailand. The city has its reputation for its slightly rowdy tourist bars, and for the recent decision to send a US ship to entertain the 5,000 sailors of the USS Abraham Lincoln after more than 200 days at sea in the Strait of Hormuz. But a handful of places on its outskirts, a few kilometres from the centre, offer calm and consideration.
The Mason is one of them.
(Photo Credit: Bert Archer)
Designed by architect Vasu Virajsilp and his Bangkok firm VaSLab Architecture, the place is more subtle than the Aman, but just as impressive in its own way. It starts with the long concrete benches in the lobby, set in a play of horizontal lines that frame the view of the dense greenery and the sea, all focused on the stone theme that gives the hotel its name. There's also a small restobar overlooking the gulf, perched above the twenty or so villas.
Most rooms have a private pool like this one ; some have bigger ones (Photo Credit: Bert Archer)
From the lobby, a member of the staff drives you by golf cart to your villa, and that's where you see what makes the Mason one of the region's most impressive hotels. Decorated with subtlety and taste, the villas are very big, spacious, each with a private pool larger than a plunge pool, discreetly separated from the other villas by tall hedges that manage to muffle the neighbours' voices.
The furninshings in the lobby set the tone for the place (Photo Credit: Bert Archer)
Twenty minutes from the centre of Pattaya, it's a genuine oasis amid the Australian, American, Russian and Israeli tourists who have been coming to Pattaya for generations (two, at least) for the parties, the girls, the boys, and a beach they see as a trash can. Pattaya is better than that. It's the place Bangkokians come for their beach staycations, and as a result, is both quite touristy and very local. The people working the bars, cafes, souvenir shops and food stands are friendly, extremely hospitable, and outside the centre, in places like the Mason, you can enjoy yourself quietly, like the pictures on the Thailand posters.
(Photo Credit: Bert Archer)
And at the Mason in particular, you can do it in a design setting among the best in the hotel world.
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