[4] He is a great-grandson of the late nineteenth-century magnate and mandarin Lauw Tek Lok, the first Luitenant der Chinezen of Bekasi (a high-ranking post in the civil bureaucracy) by the latter's controversial interracial marriage to Louisa Zecha, an Indo plantation owner of Bohemian descent.
Another brother, Alwin Zecha, was the illustrious founder and executive chairman of the Pacific Leisure Group, a leading destination management company with offices in 38 countries worldwide, and also served as a board member and Chairman for numerous other organizations, including PATA.
In 1956, when President Sukarno nationalised the country's private businesses, many members of the Lauw-Sim-Zecha family fled to Singapore, the Netherlands, and the United States.
It was held above water for its last ten years by Giro Semba and Olav Mueller-Uri until it finally closed in 1998.
[8] While in Phuket looking for a site upon which to build a holiday home, Zecha was walking along Pansea Beach when he came across a coconut plantation which occupied a prime location.
The two spent mainly their own money as no banks would lend for the project due to the small number of planned rooms, instead of the 500-room hotel they thought would be more practical.
Its success, followed by that of Amandari in Bali, confirmed to Zecha the viability of a chain of minimalist boutique resorts in remote, natural settings.
A lawsuit between Vaturi and Colony Capital promised to drag on, putting Zecha's plans to expand the number of Aman resorts on hold.
[8] In the intervening period Zecha founded Maha Resorts, which opened its Hacineda de San Antonio in Mexico in October 2000.
In 2007, Zecha announced that he had reached an agreement with DLF Ltd, India's largest real estate company, to form a partnership to acquire a controlling interest in Aman Resorts for US$250 million.
DLF Group sold the company in 2013 to a joint venture between Russian real estate investor Vladislav Doronin and American entrepreneur Omar Amanat for US$358 million.