1 Hotel Toronto ★★★★★

King West Got a Hotel That Behaves Like a Forest

King West was warehouses long before it was restaurants, and 1 Hotel Toronto opened into that grain in August 2021 rather than against it. Rockwell Group took the interiors and worked in reclaimed material: timber and driftwood recovered within the city, stone, linen, and something over three thousand plants distributed through the public rooms and the gardens. The effect is closer to a glasshouse than a lobby, and it is doing more than decoration. The building runs on Ontario renewable power, diverts the large majority of its waste and composts on site. A hundred and twelve rooms sit above it, twenty-one of them suites.

Why It Works

Sustainable luxury is a phrase most hotels use and few can evidence. This one can: LEED Gold, an on-site composter that reduces twelve thousand pounds of waste to under a thousand pounds of soil in a month, filtered water in the rooms in place of bottles. The second reason is that none of it costs the guest anything in comfort. The rooms take skyline views, the roof carries a pool and a bar, and the restaurants are destinations rather than conveniences. The third is the neighbourhood, which is the part of Toronto most visitors actually want to be in.

Why This Location

Wellington Street West sits at the centre of King West, a stretch of converted warehouses that carries a good share of the city's restaurants and most of its late hours. Queen Street West and its shops begin a few blocks north, Trinity Bellwoods Park a walk beyond that, and the CN Tower and the waterfront lie south, close enough to reach on one of the hotel's bicycles. The financial district is east, which matters on a Tuesday. What you do not get here is the hush of Yorkville, and that is rather the point.

Fast Facts

• Price: Luxury

• Vibe: biophilic, King West, low-lit and green

• Rooms: 112 rooms including 21 suites, city and skyline views, interiors by Rockwell Group in reclaimed timber and stone, plus the Retreat Collection of Cedar, Willow and Birch houses

• Best For: weekends built around restaurants and galleries, travellers who care what a building runs on, dog owners

• Our Favorite Thing About the Hotel: the on-site composter, which turns twelve thousand pounds of waste a month into under a thousand pounds of soil

• Dining: 1 Kitchen for organic, seasonal, locally sourced cooking; Flora Lounge for cocktails and live music; Casa Madera for Mexican and Mediterranean; Harriet's Rooftop Bar and Lounge; the Garden Pavilion outdoors

• Amenities: rooftop pool; The Field House gym with personal training and Mind and Movement programming; complimentary bicycles; in-room water filtration; LEED Gold; pets welcome

• Attractions: Queen Street West a few blocks north, Trinity Bellwoods Park beyond it, the CN Tower and the waterfront to the south, the financial district east

Rockwell Group's Brief Was Reclaimed Toronto

The material list is the design story here. Timber and driftwood recovered within the city, stone and linen and rope, and planting on a scale that needs its own maintenance schedule: three thousand three hundred plants across the property and its gardens. Rockwell Group is a New York firm that usually works at a theatrical register, and the restraint here is deliberate. Rooms run dim and soft rather than bright and white, water arrives filtered from a tap rather than in plastic, and the corridors carry enough green that you notice the air. The look has been widely copied since 2021, rarely with the certifications behind it.

The Roof, the Field House and the Bicycles

The roof is the social heart: a pool, and Harriet's beside it, which fills with Torontonians on a warm evening and stays open through the cold months. Below, The Field House is a gym with a programme rather than a room with machines, running personal training and Mind and Movement sessions. Bicycles are free to guests and King West is flat, which turns the waterfront and the islands into a genuine morning rather than an intention. Dogs are welcome throughout which, given the number of plants, is more generous than it sounds.