1 Hotels opened its first property in South Beach in March 2015, followed by Central Park that August. Barry Sternlicht built the brand around a simple commercial proposition that was still unusual in luxury hospitality at the time: nature and environmental responsibility would not sit in a CSR appendix; they would determine the materials, operating choices, food, guest rituals and visual identity of the hotel itself. By August 2026, the official portfolio had grown to 15 operating hotels across seven countries, with additional hotels and residences in development.
The Brand
1 Hotels is the nature-led luxury brand within Starwood Hotels / SH Group, the hotel-management platform founded by Barry Sternlicht and affiliated with Starwood Capital Group. It sits alongside Baccarat Hotels and Treehouse Hotels but has the clearest mission architecture of the three. The current official locations platform shows operating hotels in the United States, Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Australia and Japan: Austin, Brooklyn Bridge, Cabo, Central Park, Hanalei Bay, Nashville, San Francisco, Seattle, South Beach, Toronto, West Hollywood, Copenhagen, Mayfair, Melbourne and Tokyo.
The brand has also moved beyond transient hotel rooms. 1 Homes currently lists completed residential components at South Beach, Brooklyn Bridge, Cabo, Melbourne and Tokyo, with further residences in development. This matters because the design vocabulary — natural materials, planted environments, local craft and a stated sustainability framework — is being sold not only as a hotel experience but as a way of living. Paris, San Miguel de Allende and Elounda Hills are among the destinations currently shown by 1 Hotels as 'sprouting soon'.
Philosophy
Barry Sternlicht's founding idea was to bring the beauty of nature into a hotel while accepting a responsibility to safeguard it. 1 Hotels therefore treats nature as both design brief and operating discipline. Reclaimed and native materials, living greenery, filtered water, reduced single-use plastics, local and seasonal food, waste diversion, reuse and conservation partnerships recur across the portfolio. The strongest properties do not look identical; they translate the same principle through the ecology and material history of their city or resort.
The brand's sustainability language has also become more explicit about accountability. Its environmental platform covers materials, water, waste, food and resource protection, while individual properties increasingly document local interventions — from salvaged materials at Hanalei Bay and Melbourne to forest restoration support in Denmark. The important distinction is that 1 Hotels uses sustainability as product design: a guest encounters it in the faucet, bottle, furniture, plants, menus and public spaces rather than only in a report.
Nature as the Operating System
Most luxury hotels can add plants and local food. 1 Hotels was built around making environmental choices part of the brand standard itself: reclaimed and native materials, filtered water, reusable vessels, waste sorting and plant-led design are repeated operating codes rather than occasional property initiatives.
Luxury Without Polished Perfection
The visual language prefers weathered timber, stone, exposed texture, greenery and objects with visible previous lives. Central Park famously embedded 16,000 fallen twigs into its entrance doors; Melbourne reused heritage elements from Goods Shed No. 5 and more than 2,000 repurposed components. Imperfection is deliberately made luxurious.
Urban Nature, Not Only Eco-Resorts
The brand's most important move was proving that nature-led hospitality did not require an ecolodge. Central Park, Brooklyn, Mayfair, Toronto, Copenhagen, Melbourne, Tokyo and Seattle bring the concept into dense cities, where the contrast between street and planted sanctuary becomes part of the product.
Mission as Loyalty
Mission Membership is now a free, no-tier programme built around personalization and environmental giving rather than a conventional status ladder. Members receive rates, upgrades and late checkout subject to availability, while qualifying stays trigger donations to a chosen environmental nonprofit. In July 2025 the programme deliberately moved away from points and tiers toward personalization.
Homes as a Second Layer
1 Homes extends the brand into residences. Completed projects include 155 homes at South Beach, 106 at Brooklyn Bridge Park, 55 in Cabo, 114 in Melbourne and 36 serviced residences in Tokyo, with additional residential projects announced. This makes the brand a hospitality-and-living platform rather than only a hotel flag.
Who It Is Not For
1 Hotels is wrong for the traveller who wants classical grand-hotel ceremony, highly polished decorative luxury, or a property whose environmental position remains invisible. Its materials are intentionally tactile and sometimes rustic; greenery and sustainability cues are part of the aesthetic; food and wellness lean toward contemporary lifestyle culture. Guests who equate luxury primarily with marble, formality, status hierarchy or a traditional points programme will find stronger fits elsewhere.
2015 · 1 Hotel South Beach · Miami Beach
The first operating 1 Hotel and the proof of concept: a large beachfront resort that tested whether environmental design could coexist with Miami luxury, pools, restaurants and high-volume resort operations.
2015 · 1 Hotel Central Park · New York City
The urban manifesto. Its ivy façade, reclaimed materials, living plants and proximity to Central Park made the brand's nature-in-the-city idea immediately legible.
2017 · 1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge · Brooklyn
A waterfront urban resort beside Brooklyn Bridge Park that tied reclaimed materials and planted design to one of New York's most recognisable views; it also established a substantial 1 Homes residential layer.
2023 · 1 Hotel Hanalei Bay · Kaua'i
The resort expression at its most landscape-dependent: the property foregrounds the bay and island ecology, and official brand material highlights 144.6 tons of salvaged material reused as furniture and art.
2023 · 1 Hotel Mayfair · London
The first European flagship placed the brand in one of London's most expensive luxury districts while using reclaimed Yorkshire stone and a nature-led material language rather than traditional Mayfair opulence.
2026 · 1 Hotel Tokyo · Tokyo
The current Asian expansion point and a useful test of global portability: nature-led design and Mission Membership translated into a dense, design-literate Asian capital, with 36 serviced 1 Homes residences alongside the hotel.
Comparison with Six Senses
The closest philosophical comparison, but Six Senses is more resort-, wellness- and retreat-led, with deeper spa and longevity programming. 1 Hotels is stronger as an urban lifestyle brand and makes sustainability more visible in everyday material design.
Comparison with Banyan Tree
Banyan Tree grew from tropical resorts and spa culture into a broad global group. 1 Hotels began as a mission-driven lifestyle brand and is more tightly coded around reclaimed materials, urban sanctuaries and contemporary North American hospitality culture.
Comparison with Azerai
Azerai shares restraint and place sensitivity but is tiny, founder-authored and deliberately understated. 1 Hotels is more scalable, more overtly branded and far more explicit about sustainability as a public mission.
Comparison with Nayara Resorts
Nayara is smaller and more ecosystem-led, with rainforest, island and desert resorts tied closely to conservation in place. 1 Hotels has the broader urban footprint and a more repeatable design-and-operations sustainability system.
Comparison with Our Habitas
Our Habitas builds luxury around community, music and programmed experience. 1 Hotels is less socially performative and more materially and operationally focused on nature, design, food and environmental practice.
Comparison with Edition
Edition is the useful non-eco comparison: both sell contemporary lifestyle luxury in major cities and resorts, but Edition is driven by social design, nightlife and Ian Schrager's hotel language, while 1 Hotels makes nature and sustainability the organising proposition.
Booking Notes
No confirmed LVXVRY preferred-partner status is asserted in this Master. 1 Hotels can be booked through LVXVRY on request, with exclusive LVXVRY rates quoted for the requested dates where available. Mission Membership and travel-advisor booking status are separate questions: Mission is the guest's relationship with the brand, while any advisor amenities depend on the specific booking channel, property and rate and should never be assumed.
One important current limitation: Mission's published terms define qualifying stays narrowly and exclude certain travel-agent and negotiated-rate bookings from programme earning. For any guest who values Mission benefits, the exact rate and participating-property rules should therefore be checked before ticketing rather than assuming all agency bookings qualify.
Editorial Note
Portfolio and programme facts reviewed August 2026 from 1 Hotels' official locations, story, sustainability, Homes and Mission Membership pages and official property materials. The live locations page shows 15 operating hotels in seven countries; Paris, San Miguel de Allende and Elounda Hills are shown as future locations. Mission Membership was redesigned effective July 2025 from points and tiers toward a free, no-tier personalization-and-donation model. Figures are dated because openings and participating-property rules are changing quickly.