在爱沙尼亚希乌马岛的 Eha 新静修度假村，体验五季康养

November 11, 2026

You’ve heard of spring, summer, fall, and winter. But what about viies aastaaeg? Across the islands of western Estonia in late March, as the ice thaws and the Baltic mists shift, a micro-season is created—one that Eha, a new retreat on the remote island of Hiiumaa which opened in early October, has termed “springrise” and placed at the center of its “five seasons” wellness philosophy. “Hiiumaa has its own rhythm,” says the Tallinn-born Eva Maran, who has spent the past five years developing Eha alongside her husband, the Singaporean-Estonian entrepreneur Sonny Aswani. “Nothing can be forced.”

For Maran and Aswani, the journey to creating Eha began halfway across the world, during a walk on a wellness retreat in India. After years of splitting their time (and their busy careers) between Singapore and Estonia—at one point, Aswani’s family conglomerate was contributing 1% of the latter’s GDP—whenever the couple had a moment to hit pause and visit one of the world’s top holistic sanctuaries, they found themselves returning to a single question: How do we return to what really matters? And why travel to the ends of the earth to find the kind of serenity that already existed in their own northern European backyard?

The answer led them to this unspoiled corner of Estonia, to build a place where their distinct family histories—Maran’s grandfather was born on Hiiumaa, while Aswani’s great-grandfather was a traditional Sindhi healer—could overlap with their shared reverence for the land, their ancestral roots, and their fascination with the power of holistic healing. “Hiiumaa is not an obvious place for a luxury retreat, and that is exactly why it felt right,” Maran explains. “It has a quietness and authenticity that you cannot really create.” Rather than impose their vision on the landscape, they decided to “listen to it and build something that felt as though it belonged there.”

Think of Hiiumaa as Estonia’s wilder, more windswept version of Martha’s Vineyard: a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve with miles of white-sand beaches and moss-carpeted forests, dotted with traditional timber farmhouses and medieval stone churches. While locals typically make the journey via a quick prop-plane hop from Tallinn or a leisurely mainland ferry, the most seamless route for international travelers is actually via Finland: After touching down in Helsinki and spending a night beneath the Belle Époque chandeliers of the freshly restored Hotel Kämp—the city’s storied, 19th-century grand dame—I boarded a private charter with Helsinki Citycopter for a breathtaking, 45-minute flight over the emerald islets of the Baltic Sea.

Hiiumaa moves at a very different pace from the Finnish capital, however. It’s long served as a popular summer getaway for Estonians, and more recently those who have prospered thanks to Tallinn’s tech boom over the past two decades: When I visited in June, families could be spotted hopping onto sailboats in the Kärdla marina, catching the early summer breeze to head out seal-watching, or gathering outside the beachside restaurants for smoked fish and cold beers.

Despite the island’s influx of visitors every summer, building a luxury retreat in such a remote location came with its fair share of challenges—though ultimately, it was a reminder to work with the land rather than against it. “It would have been easy at certain points to add more, to make things bigger, or to follow what the wellness industry is doing elsewhere,” Maran admits. “But we kept returning to the same principle: We wanted Eha to feel grown, not built, and that kind of feeling cannot be rushed.”

To bring that vision to life, they assembled an all-star roster of Estonian creatives: architect Tiit Trummel designed the Main House, while Studio Argus and Vaikla Studio worked on the interior architecture of the main hub and surrounding Forest Houses, employing a calming palette of untreated timber, lime plaster, and muted earth tones that reflect the shifting light of the forest and sea. Landscape architect Kristiina Hellström developed a series of wild coastal meadows, organic kitchen gardens, and wandering forest trails. Virtually every object has been sourced from makers across the country: Guests wrap themselves in custom robes by Tallinn-based fashion designer Katrin Kuldma of Amanjeda, dine off earthy ceramic tableware by Uluala, and wash with organic sea buckthorn and juniper bath products crafted by Hiiumaa-based artisans Hiiuihuhooldus. Even the property’s custom-woven fabrics incorporate coastal stripes and geometric folk motifs, paying homage to the island’s centuries-old wool-weaving traditions.

But the real draw here, of course, is its spectacular setting. There are few spots on the island (or indeed, anywhere in the Baltics) quite as arresting as where Eha has positioned itself along the southeastern coast: an octagonal, thatch-roofed architectural wonder, it hovers above a mirror-like tidal stream on the edge of an ancient pine forest, where blue-black barn swallows (the Estonian national bird) chirp among the reeds. “In Estonia, nature is a religion, and the forest is our church,” says Maran. Even the fiercest skeptic would struggle to disagree that there’s a powerfully elemental, even spiritual charge to the land here.

That ethos informs every layer of the guest experience, which has been curated by general manager and wellness director Amber Gauci-Ward around three pillars: circadian rhythm alignment, nervous system regulation, and a meaningful connection to nature, self, and others. The circadian rhythm aspect is especially intriguing: Each chapel-like suite is outfitted with circadian-aligned lamps to begin the day, while meals are served deliberately early to help you digest before dozing off at 9 p.m. sharp, lulled by a spatial sleep soundscape in the room conceived in partnership with the acoustic studio Olo.

If that sounds a little too regimented on paper, it isn’t in practice. The intention here is to ground you in the simpler things: brisk Baltic walks, or sipping herbal tea in one of the nooks and crannies “for daydreaming,” or lying out on a blanket in one of the fields after the lights have been dimmed, and the night sky becomes dazzlingly bright. “I think the wellness and longevity industries can sometimes overcomplicate things,” Maran notes. “There is so much science and innovation now, which is wonderful, but it can also become overwhelming. At Eha, we are returning to the basics: fresh air, clean water, nourishing food, natural light, minimal light pollution, good sleep, meaningful connection, and time in nature.”

And because Eha’s calendar is dictated by those five distinct Nordic seasons, no two stays look quite the same. A fall retreat focuses on grounding and harvest, with Estonian peat-steam rituals, mushroom foraging, and guided bog trails, while winter embraces deep rest through snowshoeing, dusk lantern walks, and Yoga Nidra by the fireplace. The fleeting weeks of varakevad—or springrise—will see you wake in the mornings to head out for maple sap collection and somatic movement sessions, while the luminous Nordic summers open up to berry harvesting, wild swimming, and botanical cocktails at twilight. (There are plenty of top-tier facial and body rituals on offer, too: some draw on 2,000-year-old therapeutic sea mud harvested from nearby Käina Bay wetland, as well as bioactive bog peat developed by Estonian skincare innovator Aesti; other therapies use international plant-powered lines like Seed to Skin Tuscany and Ground.)

The food, too, moves with the micro-seasons. Firmly rejecting the restrictive nature of traditional spa cuisine, Eha’s organic-forward kitchen—helmed by Green Michelin-starred chef Peeter Pihel—is generously portioned while remaining, like everything else, deeply rooted in the island’s terroir. “We are not trying to make wellness food feel austere—we want it to feel generous, grounding, and deeply satisfying,” says Maran. Meals are augmented by daytime adaptogenic elixirs, functional mushroom tonics from Estonian producer Shroomwell, and hands-on fermentation and culinary workshops. Mushrooms are a seriously big deal here—during my visit, I was invited to drill a hole in the side of a birch tree and plant a chaga mushroom with a small marker beside it, to encourage me to come back and check on its progress on my next visit.

With its distinctive and deeply thoughtful philosophy, one senses there will be a lot of repeat guests arriving for Eha’s three- to seven-night wellness programs, swapping pinging inboxes and calendar alerts for birch saunas and forest bathing. I know that after seeing the grounds in high summer, I was deeply curious to see how they appear in the golden splendor of fall and the moody winter mists. Oh, and the spring, too: It’s then that you can try apitherapy, in which guests are invited to rest among the beehives (fear not: you’ll be protected from any stings within an enclosed relaxation bed) to absorb the healing energy of their vibrations and the scent of propolis. “So much of modern life pulls us away from our own rhythm,” Maran adds. “At Eha, I hope people feel that rhythm slowly returning.”

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Liam Hess is American Vogue’s senior lifestyle and weddings editor, overseeing coverage of homes, travel, food, design, parties, and weddings remotely from London. Between editing stories, he can also be found writing about music, film, books, and reviewing fashion collections in London for Vogue Runway. Previously, he has worked at ... Read More