A Nature-Obsessed Luxury Brand Just Opened Inside the Tallest Building in Texas

1 Hotels opened 1 Hotel Austin on September 3, occupying the base of the Waterline, the 74-storey downtown tower that is now the tallest building in Texas. The hotel sits where Waller Creek meets Lady Bird Lake, on a stretch of downtown that was neglected until the surrounding mixed-use development went up.

There are 252 rooms, including 60 suites. Kohn Pedersen Fox designed the tower, with HKS as architect of record and Studio MAI handling interiors alongside Starwood Hotels' in-house design team; Lincoln Property Company and Kairoi Residential developed it. The building's curve follows the creek below, and planted balconies and terraces break up the scale.

Food and beverage is the clearest statement of intent. The signature restaurant, Alteño Austin, comes from chef Johnny Curiel, a James Beard nominee whose Denver restaurant Alma Fonda Fina holds a Michelin star, cooking the food of Jalisco's highlands. On the 16th floor, watr is an open-air rooftop restaurant and lounge with a Japanese-leaning menu and views over the lake. Neighbors, a café and wine bar with entrances from both the lobby and the street, is aimed at locals as much as guests.

Wellness gets its own floor: a 2,000-square-foot fitness centre opening onto a terrace, a yoga studio, and an outpost of Bamford Wellness Spa. There is more than 10,000 square feet of event space, and the property is pursuing LEED Gold certification.

For Austin, this is another entrant in a luxury market that has thickened quickly. Four Seasons Hotel Austin has held the top of the market on the lakefront for years, and Commodore Perry Estate from Auberge covers the historic-estate angle. 1 Hotels, founded by Barry Sternlicht, is betting that a biophilic downtown tower with a Michelin-starred chef and a spa floor reads differently from either. The brand has Cabo San Lucas, Paris, Crete, Tokyo, Riyadh and Hudson Valley in its pipeline.