Can these ultra-exclusive luxury destinations help extend your life? They’d certainly like to try

CNN
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When the Six Senses Residences Dubai Marina is completed in 2028, the gleaming 122-story building will be the tallest residential structure in the world, complete with luxury fitness and wellness amenities to match. Residents will be able to lift weights, take an outdoor yoga class or swim laps in a pool more than 100 stories high in the clouds.

But what if, by living there, people were also extending their lives? That’s the mission of the “longevity floor,” another amenity available to future residents of the Six Senses’ 251 apartments and “sky mansions.” This unique floor will include even more specialized offerings such as crystal sound healing, believed by its practitioners to reduce stress and improve sleep. Or residents can indulge in hyperbaric treatments, breathing in 100% oxygen in a pressurized chamber which has shown promising anti-aging results.

“The idea around it is that you’re not just purchasing a residence, you’re purchasing a lifestyle,” said Kevin Cavaco, director of marketing for Select Group, the building’s developer.

“You’re purchasing an opportunity to work on your true wealth — which is your longevity. You’re prolonging your time.”

Life extension may be a lofty — and dubious — pitch, but it’s a common theme among luxury fitness clubs, opulent new high rises and exclusive retreats. The trend coincides with new scientific studies and a parallel fixation in the tech world, but the provable science behind these promises is often murky.

Celebrity personal trainer and gym designer Harley Pasternak is used to designing programs for high-profile celebrities including Kim Kardashian, Lady Gaga and Halle Berry. But he’s noticed a shift in the past few years, he told CNN over email, as he’s gained an “influx” of tech founder clients.

“All of them are definitely more interested in aging, in a way that I’ve never seen prior to five years ago,” he said. “All kinds of biohacking tricks like heat exposure, cold, exposure, certain supplements, training, foraging, and even certain medications.”

Experts generally agree that eating well, reducing stress, exercising and having positive social connections can all lead to a longer life, as can avoiding habits like smoking and drinking. And the wealthy already have the upper hand: Studies show those on the upper end of the socioeconomic scale not only live longer, they stay healthy for nearly a decade longer than others.

Still, the race to crack the longevity code has become ubiquitous, from proponents of drugs like Ozempic and Rapamycin which assert their age-slowing abilities, to cultural fixations on so-called geographical “blue zones” where people are believed to live to 100 at unusual rates. (One scientist was recently recognized for his research finding that blue zones may be based on faulty data and pension fraud rather than a hidden fountain of youth.)

Then there’s tech’s leading chaser of longevity, Bryan Johnson, who claims his multimillion-dollar regimen of constant testing and treatments, in addition to an ultra-strict diet and exercise schedule, has taken years off of his actual age of 47.

Though Johnson’s ascetic yet exorbitant lifestyle falls on the extreme end of the spectrum, methodically tracking personal biometrics — from daily nutritional macros to the quality of  sleep — has gone mainstream through tech wearables from brands like Apple, Oura and Fitbit.

Fitness programs and private retreats also offer their members biomarker and genetic testing for even more personalized plans at a high cost. Luxurious destination clinics including Clinique La Prairie in Switzerland and Lanserhof in Austria have long been hotspots for celebrities looking to do just that while ensconced in beautiful alpine or seaside architecture. This year, a new offering by Equinox includes biomarker testing and customized coaching for fitness, nutrition and recovery. The whole package costs $40,000 a year, which is more than twice the yearly income of an American worker making the federally-mandated minimum wage.

Continuum Club, located in New York City, takes a similar approach to health with the help of AI. The ultra-exclusive social and wellness club, which soft-launched its swanky flagship location in May and will cap at around 250 members, costs $10,000 a month. The fee buys members biometric screening, performance tests, body composition analysis, bloodwork and a sleep study, according to a press release, all of which is evaluated by AI. Continuum’s tech will continuously monitor members’ biometrics and provide ongoing recommendations for exercise, nutrition and recovery.

But whether or not such meticulous approaches can actually slow aging remains to be seen, according to Continuum’s chief revenue officer Tom Wingert, in a video call with CNN.

“We’ll find out,” he said of the effectiveness of the broader trend. “You can’t say longevity and then have any sort of weight behind it until you do a longitudinal analysis and see what we accomplish 30 or 40 years from now. But the data is there, the science is there. It’s all founded on something.”

Because of that, the quest to live longer is not Continuum’s primary purpose, but more of a “downstream impact,” he explained.

“We’re looking to accomplish what we like to think about as a life well lived,” he said. “Of course, the better care that you’re taking of yourself now — how you’re moving your body, how you’re recovering, how you’re sleeping, how your specific genetic markers are being accounted for — that will result in a higher likelihood of longevity. But we’re not dealing with the uncertainty of what comes later.”

For the people behind Continuum, precision is key at a time when tricks for living longer and better spread unscrupulously across social media.

“(People are) seeing somebody get in a cold plunge on Instagram and saying, ‘I guess I should do a cold plunge,’” he said. “None of that has anything to do with what’s actually going to work for my body and my lifestyle and my set of circumstances.”

And though people may feel more in tune with their bodies thanks to their wearables, Wingert says data alone can still be confusing to interpret.

“So I got a bad night’s sleep, I have a low ‘readiness’ score… What do I do with this information?” he said. “You go to bed earlier and you listen to this meditation by Matthew McConaughey or whatever. Maybe it’ll help you get to sleep. But what does that mean for how you move? What does that mean for how you eat over the course of a day?”

A focus on nature and connection

Not every quest for longevity is high-tech. In the arid canyons of Sedona, Arizona, one retreat emphasizes a return to nature and oneself. Mii amo recently underwent a $40 million expansion and reopened last year. During three- to seven-day stays, guests choose their own programs depending on their needs, which can include longevity offerings related to nutrition, mindfulness, movement and community-building.

“Our guests come in looking for very different experiences,” general manager Christian Davies told CNN in a phone call. He explained that each guest is paired with a guide for their stay. The choose-your-own-adventure experience could include hiking, mountain and stargazing around the 70-acre horseshoe canyon where the property is situated; yoga, pilates or pickleball; nutrition classes in their garden; or chakra balancing in the spa. The experience is enhanced by the energy “vortexes” believed to be around Sedona, Davies said, which are sites supposedly supercharged by iron and quartz in the earth that facilitate healing.

Davies associates the increased interest in longevity with the lasting impacts of Covid-19. “When Covid struck, I think that changed people’s perspectives on what was important,” he said.

Like at Mii amo, The beneficial impacts of human connection were also top of mind for the architects at Six Senses Residences, as they explored how to foster a stronger sense of community vertically through its 61,000 square feet of amenities and communal spaces.

Within the “dense urban setting” of Dubai Marina district, as architect Priya Mrinal of the firm Woods Bagot described it, the tower focuses on airy, open amenities that use biophilic design – a building concept that aims to connect people with the natural world even in a built environment.

“Once you come in, you immediately feel like it’s transformed into a little oasis,” she told CNN.

Across the world, on a snowy mountain in Utah famous for its skiing, a new residential neighborhood will offer social connection and private trails for 600 families along with another potentially life-extending perk: looking at art.

Powder Mountain in Utah is undergoing a transformation over the next two years, thanks to the resort’s new majority owner Reed Hastings, former CEO of Netflix, that will turn the 8,000-acre resort into a skiable outdoor art museum. By 2026, it will open with site-specific works by world-renowned artists including Jenny Holzer, James Turrell and Arthur Jafa. While Powder will be free to anyone hiking the mountain in the summer season, the cold months will, at minimum, require a lift ticket or season pass to visit.

But Powder’s permanent residents, who can purchase one of the first 39 homes for $2.5 to $5 million, will have access to a lot more than private lift passes and the freedom to ski without crowds.

“We’re thinking a lot of what luxury even means in today’s day and age — this new luxury that’s at the intersection of culture and wellness,” said Powder’s chief creative officer Alex Zhang. “It isn’t about the opulence of Aspen or Deer Valley, it’s about time. It’s about quality time.”

The architect-designed cabins and homes will be accompanied by a lodge facility with restaurants and spa amenities. The minds behind the development are also looking at how residents can benefit from a health program, from testing to nutrition, that supports their athletic endeavors as well as the quest for a long and healthy life.

“(Can) you ski longer, hike faster, push the human potential and boundaries within recreational modalities?” Zhang posed. “(We’re also) thinking about living your best life here with your family… through longevity and health and wellness.”

As the world’s wealthiest continue to seek out ways to extend their lives, and architects and designers answer the call, Pasternak, the celebrity trainer, reiterates that the tried-and-tried essentials for longevity are much more accessible for the average person.

“You don’t need to be rich to walk 10,000 steps a day, weight train a few times a week, eat more fruits and vegetables and lean proteins, and go to bed a few minutes earlier,” he said.

“None of the expensive exotic longevity treatments can come close to those basic fundamentals.”

Still, that doesn’t mean his clients don’t make lavish requests. Pasternak has even installed cryotherapy chambers in some private homes that boast the ability to reduce inflammation, which may slow the aging process. That is, if you have $100,000 to spare.

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