1 Hotel South Beach: 2015 BoY Winner for Green Hotel
Will Meyer and Gray Davis are experts when it comes to hotel and restaurant design, and the Starwood Capital Group’s Barry Sternlicht is a member of the Interior Design Hall of Fame. Put them together, supported by Kobi Karp as architect of record, and you have a championship team in the competition to redefine high-end hospitality. Proof positive is the debut property for the 1 Hotel brand, seeking to make its name synonymous with eco-consciousness.
The 426-room hotel occupies the lower eight stories of a beachfront building from 1968. Guests pull up beneath a porte cochere in reclaimed redwood. Just steps inside the lobby is a mural of a swimmer, rendered in live moss growing through slits in a white-painted wall. Beyond the mural stretches a continuum of intimate seating groups alternating with banyan tree trunks, painted white. As Davis says, “There’s a relaxed peacefulness. Barry referenced toes in the sand.” Dialing down to details, he and Meyer specified clothes hangers molded from recycled paper, hemp mattresses, organic bed linens, and chalkboards in lieu of bedside note pads.
For many guests, luxury means choice, hence the four swimming pools. Convenience is luxurious, too. Should anyone need to venture out to the Lincoln Road pedestrian mall for a bikini, a fleet of battery-powered white Teslas sits at the ready.
Project Team:
Meyer Davis Studio: Grace Escano; Michael Casey; Kristen Cochran; Mei Lau; Patrick Martin; Lauren Williams. Kobi Karp Architecture & Interior Design: Jennifer McConney-Gayoso; Leo Guedes.
