New metal-amino acid Schiff bases resembling lipid bilayers have been isolated and established by single-crystal X-ray crystallography. Hydrogen bonding between the solvate and coordination sphere and aromatic stacking of the Schiff base ligands lead to discrete hydrophilic and hydrophobic regions.gives bilayer sheets with width ratio of ca. 3 A : 5 A (hydrophilic : hydrophobic). Replacement of Cu 2+ by octahedral Ni 2+ gives [Ni(WNap)(H 2 O) 2 (MeOH)]$H 2 O, 2, with a slight increase of hydrophilic layer width (by ca. 2 A). The additional hydroxyl group in [Ni(YNap)(H 2 O) 2, successfully introduces a separate amphiphilic layer, originated from the hydrogen bond interaction of tyrosine side chain. The coordination environments of 2 and 3 are isostructural whereas 1 is dinuclear with the Cu(II) metal centers showing different geometries (square planar and square pyramid).