Week #14: New Hotel News

What’s happening in the world of super cool new hotels? Check out our latest five most noteworthy openings of 2021 as featured by the editors at HotelMap? & Roomcard?.

The founder of the Aman group launches a new hotel brand, Dubai adds a towering new hotel and one of the world’s highest infinity pools to its palm-shaped island, and the tide turns on a cool coastal retreat in Santa Barbara. The first hotel on New York’s notorious Roosevelt Island and a luxury hotel carved out of four 17th century townhouses with incredible views over Malta's main port; these are the top five new hotels of the week.

Graduate Roosevelt Island | Opens 1 June 2021

NEW YORK: “Bringing Eclectic Cool Vibes to Roosevelt Island” (Travel + Leisure), Graduate Roosevelt Island is the first hotel on an “NYC island with a notorious past” (CNN) and “a high-tech future” - the “oft-overlooked” (The Telegraph) two-mile island between Manhattan and Queens “known for its hospitals, prison and Lunatic Asylum” (New York Post). Now it’s getting a “sleek and modern” (The Telegraph) 18-story tower hotel, at the entrance of the new campus of Ivy League university Cornell Tech - “the first campus ever built for the digital age” (Dezeen). The brand’s 29th property and its first in New York City, the hotel is “accessible by sea, land, and air” (Travel + Leisure). “Designed by architecture firm Sn?hetta” (Dezeen) - a Norwegian firm whose projects include the Oslo Opera House - the hotel comes with over 3,600 square feet of waterfront event space, a restaurant and a rooftop lounge as well as 224 guest rooms. Here your check-in is overseen by a “13-foot statue of Flyboy by artist Hebru Brantley” (Travel + Leisure) while the 24-hour gym will inspire with its views over the Queensboro Bridge.

Our favourite feature: All the energy of the student union plus a gym with a view.

The St. Regis Dubai, The Palm | Opens May 2021

DUBAI: The “focal point” (Time Out Dubai) of Nakheel’s new 52-storey Palm Tower, the five-star St. Regis hotel presents 290 “beautifully designed” (Conde Nast Traveller) rooms. Occupying the first 18 floors of the landmark tower on the trunk of the world-famous Palm Jumeirah island, the hotel has two outdoor pools and is topped off by a SUSHISAMBA - a three-storey rooftop dining destination - plus one of the world’s highest infinity pools. Soaring 240 metres above Dubai’s palm-shaped island, the tower's upper floors are home to 432 luxury residences and public observation deck The View. The rooftop infinity pool is “a highlight” (Forbes) - “designed for envy-inducing holiday snaps" (The Telegraph). Added to all this are a spa and a lavish ballroom while the hotel's beach club is a short walk away. Conde Nast Traveller notes: It’s one of a “slew of new hotels” opening in Dubai this year including the Marriott Resort Palm Jumeirah and the long-awaited Atlantis, The Royal. Known for its “attentive, personalized round-the-clock” (Conde Nast Traveller) butler service, St. Regis ensures “every whim is catered to”.

Our favourite feature: Luxury on another level, topped by a sky-high rooftop infinity pool.

Azumi Setoda | Opened 1 March 2021

JAPAN: When “visionary hotelier” (Independent) Adrian Zecha, “the brains behind the beloved Aman group” (Suitcase), announced he was setting up a new hotel brand, it sent the travel industry into “a tizzy of delight” (Forbes). Now the first hotel under the Azumi brand has opened. “A remote Japanese fishing island” (Design Anthology) may be “an unlikely place” but that’s exactly where Azumi Setoda has launched, putting “a modern spin on the traditional ryokan” (Suitcase). On the island of Ikuchijima, Kyoto architect Shiro Miura - known for his “contemporary teahouse-inspired sukiya style” (Design Anthology) - has turned a 140-year old compound into a hotel that’s “the pinnacle of luxury" (Suitcase). The “splendid 19th-century” (Financial Times) home of “a powerful shipping and salt-farming family” has become a modern design hotel with a community focus. As well as cypress bathtubs there’s a public bathhouse across the road so guests can get fully immersed in “Japanese bathing culture” (Independent).

Our favourite feature: Pared back Japanese aesthetics creating a sense of space.

Palihouse, Santa Barbara | Opened 1 March 2021

CALIFORNIA: The “beachy, barefoot-elegance brand” (Vogue) adds to their California properties with a new “coastal hideaway” (Travel + Leisure) housed in the historic Presidio neighbourhood in Santa Barbara. Among the five-star beach retreats, the Palihouse stands out thanks to its Spanish Colonial style building, on the site of the former Santa Barbara School of the Arts. It has “all the touchpoints of a quaint inn” Avi Brosh, the founder of Palisociety, told TripSavvy. Design wise, it’s at the intersection of “vintage preppy” and “American Riviera” (Hospitality Design). Each of the two dozen rooms comes with “SMEG refrigerators, private patios” (Business Insider) and “a fireplace” (Forbes). There’s a gym with Peloton bikes, a pool and “a secluded Mediterranean style garden” (Business Insider) - the perfect setting for “sipping on handcrafted cocktails”.

Our favourite feature: Cool and quirky styling on the California coast.

Iniala Harbour House | Opens April 2021

MALTA: The Times travel writer Susan d’Arcy picked Iniala Harbour House as one of “The 25 most romantic hotels in the Mediterranean”. Overlooking the famous Grand Harbour in Malta’s Unesco World Heritage-listed capital, Valletta, the hotel has been “carved out of four Maltese townhouses” (Forbes) “dating back to the 1600s”. It’s the latest project from philanthropist Mark Weingard whose original hotel in Thailand “delivers the kind of privacy that Saudi princesses... require” (The Telegraph). In Malta, the hotel has just 23 “imaginatively decorated guestrooms” (The i Paper), all with a “sleek, urban aesthetic juxtaposed with historic details and local art” (Forbes); “the grandest even have plunge pools” (Financial Times). The pool and spa are set in “ancient underground vaults” (The i Paper) but the hotel has another “hidden gem” (Forbes) - guesthouse, The Hideaway.

Our favourite feature: Incredible views over Malta’s main port.

Previous New Hotel News editions:

Week #13: New Hotel News | Japan’s latest hotel taps into the health benefits of volcanic hot springs, an iconic Italian hotel is given a Parisian makeover and Ibiza’s little sister gets a grown up hotel by Pacha. New Yorkers can escape to a riverside retreat, and a former boot factory in Bristol becomes a new arty hotel. These are the top five hottest new hotels of 2021 we’ve highlighted this week.

Week #12: New Hotel News | Raise a glass to the new Four Seasons set within a Napa Valley vineyard, enjoy laidback and soulful luxury in Ibiza, and explore a hotel set within the cactus-studded desert landscapes of Mexico. Our five top hotels this week also invite you to discover the vertical garden at the Rosewood in S?o Paulo and a meticulously restored medieval castle in Umbria.

Week #11: New Hotel News | Basketball courts become luxury suites in L.A, an oasis of peace arrives on a Greek party island and a new desert camp is set up in Saudi Arabia. Our five favourite new hotels this week also include a glamorous, grand palazzo in Palermo from Rocco Forte and the first hotel outside America by the buzzy NoMad brand.

Week #10: New Hotel News | Across the globe, from the Maldives to Montenegro, the Israeli desert to the African bush, we explore five stunning new hotels launching in 2021. Book your own private island, sleep under the stars in a baobab-shaped treehouse, dive into the One&Only's luxury spa, stay overnight in the Negev Desert and see the revamp of the Spanish hotel Cesar Ritz set up over 100 years ago.

Week #9: New Hotel News | This week we look at five of the best new hotels (including one owned by Pharrell Williams) opening across the globe this year. There may be a global pandemic but that hasn't stopped these new hotels from rising up. From a long list of over 120 new hotels set to open in 2021, we've chosen five hip new places to stay in New York, Paris, Nago and Miami – and reveal what the experts say about them.