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Looking for help choosing or for a property we don't list? Message our Private Rates Concierge on WhatsApp for member rates and insider knowledge on the right stay
A family-owned boutique hotel in Siem Reap, set in three traditional Khmer houses in a tropical garden, filled with the owners' art collection, with a pool and spa.
Collections:
Need To Know
- Three traditional Khmer houses with six rooms between them, in a garden setting
- A family-owned former home in central Siem Reap, near Wat Polanka
- The Sala restaurant, serving Cambodian, French and Spanish-influenced dishes
- A garden swimming pool and a palm-leaf spa pavilion for Khmer massage
- Family-friendly, with cots and childcare on request; a non-smoking property
- Vintage bicycles for rides to the temples and around town
- Around 55 minutes from Siem Reap Angkor International Airport
Check in - Check out
Check in from 14:00; check out before 12:00.
We Love
- The story — a former family home opened as a hotel by a French-Cambodian couple steeped in Khmer crafts, who filled it with the art and antiques they collected over decades.
- The houses — three traditional Cambodian wooden houses on stilts, set in a large tropical garden, with verandahs, teak detail and just a handful of rooms between them.
- The art — paintings and photography by Khmer, Asian and European artists, alongside Art Deco and 1950s pieces, sourced by the owners since the early 1990s.
- The table — Cambodian cooking from family recipes at The Sala, served under wooden beams and candlelight, with French and Spanish touches from the family's heritage.
- The garden — a swimming pool, a palm-leaf spa pavilion for Khmer massage, and birdsong, hidden behind the walls in the middle of Siem Reap.
Key Features
Book Your Stay at Maison Polanka
€0.00 for 1 Night
Location
Address
Maison Polanka, Upper East River Road, North of Wat Polanka, Siem Reap, Cambodia
Travel Info
Maison Polanka is hidden off Upper East River Road, north of Wat Polanka, in central Siem Reap, a short ride from downtown and roughly 15 minutes from the temples of Angkor. The airport is around 55 minutes away; transfers are arranged on request.
Last Updated: 2026-06-19
Expert Review
Origins
Maison Polanka was, for twenty years, a family home before it was ever a hotel. It was founded by Jean Pierre, who came from France to Cambodia in 1992 to start a vocational training school for disadvantaged young Cambodians — the Chantiers Écoles, whose crafts arm later became the celebrated Artisans d'Angkor — and Nathalie, a French-Cambodian woman who had returned to her homeland to rediscover her roots and went on to build her own vision of Khmer craft. They made their home here, raised their two children in it, and filled it with the art and objects they gathered across decades in Asia.
In May 2012 they opened that home to guests, and it remains an intensely personal place. Three traditional Cambodian wooden houses, raised on stilts in the manner of the countryside, sit in a large tropical garden hidden in the centre of Siem Reap; between them are just a handful of rooms, individually decorated with the owners' private collection — paintings and photographs by Khmer, Asian and European artists, Art Deco and 1950s furniture, pieces sourced since the early nineties. It feels less like checking into a hotel than being lent the keys to a very cultured family house.
That sensibility runs through everything. Cooking at The Sala draws on Cambodian family recipes, with French and Spanish notes from the family's heritage; the spa offers Khmer massage in a palm-leaf pavilion; and the garden holds a swimming pool and the birds that come to feed in it. The owners' long involvement in Khmer crafts and local causes gives the place real roots, and guests are drawn into that world — the food, the art, the temples a quarter of an hour away — rather than kept at arm's length from it. It is among the most personal places to stay in Siem Reap.
Top Secret
Ask the owners about the art. Almost everything on the walls and in the rooms was collected by the family over decades in Cambodia and across Asia, and there are stories behind much of it — from Khmer paintings to Art Deco finds and the lacquered elephants of the Cambodian artist Theam. A conversation about the collection, or about the crafts revival the owners helped lead after the war, is the real privilege of staying here. Take a dawn bike ride to the temples before the heat and the crowds arrive.
The Review
Maison Polanka is a hotel unlike any other in Siem Reap, and that is the whole point of it. This was a French-Cambodian family's home for two decades before it opened to guests in 2012, and it still feels like one — three stilted Khmer houses in a large, walled garden in the middle of town, hung throughout with the owners' own collection of art and antiques. The founders' deep involvement in Cambodia's craft revival gives the place a cultural weight that no designed-from-scratch hotel can match.
There are only a handful of rooms across the three houses, each individually decorated, with teak detail, verandahs and a settled, lived-in calm; the garden holds a swimming pool and a palm-leaf pavilion for Khmer massage. The Sala restaurant is a genuine draw, turning out Cambodian family recipes — with French and Spanish touches — that guests routinely rate above the restaurants in town. Service is warm and personal, run by people who clearly love hosting, and the whole place sits behind its walls in real calm, fifteen minutes from Angkor.
It is small and home-like rather than a full-service hotel, which is exactly its appeal but worth understanding: this is a place for travellers who want art, food, culture and quiet over resort facilities. Families are genuinely welcomed, and the owners draw guests into the Cambodia they know. For character, story and a real sense of place, Maison Polanka is hard to beat in Siem Reap.
