The 1 Hotel South Beach

It’s not a hard ask to visit Miami in February. Most of the US is plummeted with snow storms in February, while Miami’s average February temperatures hover around the mid-70s. When I visited earlier this month, I took an evening stroll in sandals on Miami’s famed Ocean Drive, listening to the clinking of glasses from the street’s

endless bars and the gentle rustle of palm trees that lined it. “Well,” I had to admit. “This is nice.” No wonder Miami lures nearly 27 million visitors a year.

Part of Miami’s allure is its growing luxury hotel count which secures the city’s luxury hotel count global rank among Paris, London, Dubai, and New York City. One such luxury property adding to Miami’s luxury ranks is the 1 Hotel South Beach, the first 1 Hotel property opened in 2015 which has since been followed by several more including in New York City, West Hollywood, China, and Hanalei Bay. Barry Sternlicht, the founder of W Hotels and Starwood Capital Group, made a bet that luxury travelers were seeking a sustainable but devastatingly chic choice in accommodations. “It’s simple,” Sternlicht said. “We have an impact on nature and nature has an impact on us. I decided that if I was ever going to create another hotel, I wanted it to be more than a brand; I wanted it to be a cause.” So far, the bet seems to have paid off: Copenhagen, Melbourne, and Crete openings are underway, and the 1 Hotel South Beach surely helped jettison the group’s rapid global expansion.

Sustainability is subtle but fastidious at 1 Hotels, and this is the 1 Hotels group’s strategy of success. The hotel group keeps elements rich but recycled, lavish but ecological. As I watched a number of groups gather at the bar area on a Wednesday evening to shimmy up onto bar stools and clink glasses, I wondered if anyone cared the hotel composed 220,000 pounds of food in 2023, the “carbon equivalency” of planting 2,468 seedlings. Or if anyone knew that all the cups, napkins, and disposable serviceware at the bar were compostable. It doesn’t matter. The 1 Hotel South Beach is a scene. It’s a showstopper. That’s quite enough to draw the crowds and then casually drop that the hotel is sustainable, if anyone asks.

The property has FSC-certified wood (the Federal Forest Management’s top certification), for example, which was used throughout rooms and the lobby. Textiles, including the elegant robes in the rooms, are mainly made of recycled materials. The carpet in the hallways, which used to be made of nylon, was replaced with natural wool. Up on the 1 Hotel South Beach’s rooftop at the Watr restaurant, a favorite haunt of Miami’s scene setters, the tile in the bathrooms are made by Fireclay, a certified B-Corporation that utilizes 100% recycled clay.

Sustainability extends to the hotel’s expansive art collection, too. The haunting white whale sculpture in the elevator hall, “Delia,” is made from a shower curtain ring, razor handle, and other salvaged ocean trash. Soothing panels of wood make up framed artwork from Florida based Schiller Salvage, a design and architectural store filled with “dusty salvaged goodness.” All of these details, from the design to the art, have made the 1 Hotel South Beach, along with all other US based 1 Hotels, carbon neutral as of 2018.

The fitness amenity at the 1 Hotel South Beach, far more obvious than most of the sustainability aspects of the property, is certainly worth a mention. Every morning after my run up and down South Beach, I ducked into Anatomy, the 1 Hotel’s partner and gym concept promising the “future of fitness.” Perhaps “amenity” is an understatement because Anatomy is palatial. I almost asked the desk attendant for a map. In addition to several rooms sparkling with state of the art equipment, dozens of classes are offered weekly including the arm wobbling “Gun Show,” all

complimentary for 1 Hotel South Beach guests. Classes and private sessions are led by fitness elite like Bojan Pogramilovic, a nationally ranked karate Black Belt from Serbia. The “future of fitness” is not messing around at Anatomy, and fitness fans will not find a better hotel in Miami than the 1 Hotel South Beach.

The 1 Hotel South Beach, the first of the 1 Hotel group, works for many. It’s for fans of fitness, fans of the planet, and for those who only care to fan out on a private cabana with a cocktail in hand. Any way, many will want to meet and stay in Miami at 1 Hotel South Beach.