About: Earlier this year SH Hotels & Resorts, the parent company of brands including 1 Hotels, Baccarat Hotels, and Treehouse Hotels, celebrated its 10th anniversary by rebranding as Starwood Hotels. Created nearly 30 years ago by Barry Sternlicht, Starwood Hotels is poised for significant growth with more than 40 properties open or in development across its three brands in four continents. The 1 Hotel brand is a luxury sustainable offering, which began in Miami in 2015. It has hotels across North America, the UK and Asia Pacific. The 1 Hotel Melbourne opened in June this year.
Arrival: The 1 Hotel Melbourne is located in the rejuvenated North Wharf precinct of the City’s Docklands. Developed in partnership with Melbourne-based Riverlee, the hotel enjoys 220m of uninterrupted space alongside the Yarra River. The new building is a reformation of the restored Goods Shed No. 5, Melbourne’s last remaining heritage goods shed from the city’s shipping heyday.
I walked the 15 minutes from Flinders Street station along the river bank on South Wharf Promenade, and across the bridge to the newly landscaped area outside the hotel. The 1940s building has been restored and rebuilt into the 1 Hotel & Homes Melbourne at Seafarers after being left to ruin on the water’s edge. The sleek eye-catching glass exterior belies the biophilic design within. On arrival a member of staff welcomes guests from behind a desk which has been crafted from a fallen tree more than 300 years old.
Inside, the hotel has thousands of salvaged materials from the original building framework, including 2km of windows, trusses, timber and bluestone pavers, hand crafted wooden floor tiles, fallen trees repurposed into reception and concierge desks. Works of art around the hotel are by Vanessa Barragão, Jamie North, and Indigenous Australian artists Naminapu Maymuru-White and Yhonnie Scarce. The collection focuses on reclaimed and natural materials. From suspended glass eel chandeliers to imposing plant and concrete sculptures, what I soon realised as I walked into the lobby with its reclaimed granite wall and stylish upcycled furniture, was that I wanted to reach up and touch everything. From the carved tree reception desk to the Vanessa Barragão mural Salted Souls behind it. The mural’s soft textiles were saved from landfill and the greens, beige and browns a nod to the coral on the Victorian coast. Everything is unique, personal and tactile. And then there’s the biophilic design – more than 7,000 plants in this hotel and a minimum of four plants per room as standard.
How many rooms? 277 guestrooms and 36 suites. 1 Hotel & Homes Melbourne at Seafarers offers 114 hotel-branded homes which are located above the eleventh floor and have a separate entrance, although residents can use hotel facilities.
The room: My room on the eighth floor was a River Reserve King. The picture windows overlook the river and the highway which crosses the water as it winds away into the Docklands and beyond to the curved hug of Port Philip. The earthy warm interiors are peaceful and rooms feature upcycled furniture, filtered water tap (instead of plastic water bottles), and delightful glasses made from old wine bottles from a local business. My room had a sofa and seating area overlooking the river, a king-sized bed with organic cotton bedding, a large wall mounted television, tea and coffee making facilities, a wardrobe with recycled coathangers, a transparent bathroom with an oval bath and rain shower sitting in a glass box overlooking the rest of the room and the views beyond. The cosy hooded soft grey bathrobe and slippers were ideal for slipping over a swimsuit and taking the lift down to the third floor pool and spa.
Breakfast: Breakfast is served in From Here by Mike, the hotel’s destination restaurant on the ground floor. The restaurant is the first hotel collaboration for renowned Australian chef Mike McEnearney, who is known for his work with local Australian produce and the zero-waste ethos of his menus. A la carte breakfast included breads and pastries, seasonal fruit salad, coconut chai pudding, collagen broth with turmeric, spring onion, ginger and pepperberry, avocado and miso on sourdough and crab omelette. I opted for the wood roasted portobello mushroomon sitting on creamy macadamia tarator and added a poached egg and sourdough. I would return for breakfast for this dish alone. It was like a warm earthy embrace on a cold autumn day.
If you can’t make time to sit down for breakfast you can have a grab and go from the Neighbours Cafe in the lobby which also serves barista coffee.
Working: Wifi is free and there is a curved desk made from a recycled tree in each room. I also sat on the sofa and worked there quietly for a while with a cup of coffee before my tour of the hotel.
Events: The Riverfront ballroom accommodates up to 900 guests and when I visited there had just been a wedding. I could well imagine the celebrations with the huge original warehouse timber doors opening over the sunset on the water. There are smaller flexible meeting rooms are on level 1, with windows overlooking the river and the Upstairs bar – a cocktail lounge above the Crane Bar & Lounge, can also be hired for private events.
Restaurants and bars: Crane Bar & Lounge serves cocktails made with locally distilled spirits and when I arrived the space was buzzing with a live DJ and people enjoying a Champagne and oysters event early on Thursday evening. Through the roof you can see the Malcolm Moore crane, a 1942 industrial relic and the last of its kind in Victoria, restored and repositioned as a sculptural tribute to the area’s shipping past. The Upstairs bar, which overlooks the Crane Bar & Lounge is a more intimate space on level 1.
I enjoyed my dinner at the restaurant, a cosy environment with the engaging action of an open kitchen. The menu has a map with the different locations of the hotel’s sustainable suppliers. It was fun to see where in Victoria my dinner was sourced from. I opted for the ash-baked heirloom eggplants from Remi’s Patch as a starter with along with a huge portion of mussels with creamy cider butter and wild garlic shoots and sourdough to mop up the sauce. The mussels are from Portarlington, known for mussel cultivation in Melbourne’s Port Phillip Bay. I asked why they were so large being used to smaller mussels when in Europe and was told it was because the mussels were cultivated on ropes out in the ocean giving them room to grow. For the main I enjoyed the special fish of the day once I’d picked around the tiny bones but it was the inspired and delicious side dish of fried Timbarra Farm brussel sprouts with mustard, sesame and ricotta dressing which stole the show for me.
Sustainable practices: As a new hotel the property is right at the beginning of its sustainability reporting journey and I asked the hotel manager Johannes Brosemann about this. He said: “Our commitment to tracking and analysing emissions, energy, water and waste is an important first step – it sets the foundation for measurable progress. The real value will come as we begin to publish these figures annually; in a year’s time, stakeholders will be able to see the data, compare against the baseline and understand how our initiatives are working. Over time, this transparency not only allows us to refine our targets but also to demonstrate leadership in sustainable hospitality.”
The hotel uses low energy mercury-free LED lighting systems throughout the building with smart controls, insulation, water-cooled air-conditioning systems, and advanced heat recovery methods. While currently the hotel does not purchase green power, Brosemann said: “This is something we will explore further once we have 12 months of data on our actual energy use. The hotel does have a 50kW solar power array already feeding into the building’s power supply.”
Melbourne is a drought-prone city and the hotel uses a water reuse systems, and smart irrigation technology, as well as the water filtration taps in every room which also means there are no single-use plastics. Bathroom products from Bamford Wellness Spa are served up in large amenity bottles, and vanity kits had cute messages printed on paper packaging about how else they could be used – e.g a shower cap could be reused as a cover for a salad bowl and so on…
I found a stone next to the coffee machine which says “1 less thing”. The QR code revealed guests can leave unwanted clothes or items they no longer want for charity with the stone placed on top.
I asked Brosemann about the waste minimisation strategy the hotel mentions on its website. He said: “Beyond in-room recycling, we have a green waste macerator on site. This system grinds down organic waste, reducing its volume and preparing it for conversion into compost or energy rather than landfill. We also weigh and track every stream of waste leaving the hotel, giving us accurate data to act on. As a company, we are targeting 90% diversion from landfill and we are on track to achieve this by November.”
Certifications: LEED Silver. You can read more about LEED here.
Gym? Level 3 is where you should head for some serious wellbeing. The gym is large and has the latest Technogym equipment and there’s the Bamford Wellness Spa with an array of treatments. The pool is surrounded by soft loungers and overlooks the city below. There’s a fizzing jacuzzi, a large glass fronted sauna and a steam room. It was easy to go from one to the other and feel the stress melt away. It is also kid-free zone from 5pm so it’s a great palace to hang out after dinner with a book.
Catching the zzzs? Absolutely – the black out curtains, the organic bed linen, the warm cocoon of the room. It was a rejuvenating sleep.
Future? A trailblazer in sustainability for the Melbourne hotel scene, the essence of the hotel is warm, natural, homely, and calm. The attention to detail with the reclaimed and reused items from the original building add to the delicate weave of history, sustainability and luxury. Hotel manager Johannes Brosemann added: “We’re proud to be pioneers of a new kind of hospitality in Melbourne – one where sustainability and luxury are not opposites, but inseparable. By holding ourselves accountable, sharing our progress openly and continuing to innovate, we aim to set a benchmark for what responsible, regenerative hospitality can look like in Australia.”
Images by Mikkel Vang
Felicity Cousins stayed at the 1 Hotel Melbourne in early September 2025.