Your guide to the boutique sustainable luxury stay that’s redefining what a New York City hotel can be.
🌿This spotlight was written in partnership with 1 Hotel Central Park. As a Coastline Travel Group preferred partner, our advisors can access exclusive Virtuoso perks, priority rates, and VIP amenities when booking your stay.
New York City is many things. Quiet is rarely one of them. But step through the doors of 1 Hotel Central Park and something unexpected happens: the noise falls away.
Tucked one block from the south entrance of Central Park in the heart of Midtown Manhattan, 1 Hotel Central Park isn’t trying to be the biggest luxury hotel in New York. It’s doing something more interesting: it’s trying to be the most thoughtful one. And from what we experienced on a recent site visit, it’s succeeding.
This is the property we find ourselves recommending to a very specific kind of traveler. One who wants luxury that feels considered rather than showy, boutique rather than sprawling, and genuinely connected to the city around it. If that sounds like your clients (or like you), read on.
40Kliving plants throughout the property
6K+sq ft of reclaimed wood
LEEDcertified urban sanctuary
🔑2025 MICHELIN Key recipient
Who Is This Property For?
Not every hotel is for every traveler, and that’s actually what makes this one special. Here’s who tends to fall hardest for 1 Hotel Central Park.
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The Wellness Traveler
Organic mattresses, in-room yoga mats, Bamford spa treatments, and a design that actively creates calm. This property is a retreat that happens to be in Manhattan.
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The Eco-Conscious Luxury Client
LEED certified with zero greenwashing. Reclaimed materials, filtered water in every tap, electric vehicle transfers. Sustainability is the entire point, not just a bullet point.
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The Repeat NYC Visitor
Been to New York before? Done the big-name hotels? 1 Hotel offers something genuinely different: boutique, warm, and quietly spectacular.
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The Food-Forward Traveler
Jams by James Beard Award-winner Jonathan Waxman is a destination in itself: seasonal, farm-to-table, and paired with one of the best bars in the neighborhood.
“The cozy, boutique feel stands out compared to many of the larger properties nearby, and the greenery creates a calm, almost nature-in-the-city atmosphere that feels genuinely refreshing.”
A Perfect Day at 1 Hotel Central Park
Here’s how to make the most of a day here, from first coffee to nightcap.
AM
7:30 – 9:00 AM
Breakfast at Jams
Start in the restaurant before the city wakes up. Jams is led by James Beard Award-winner Jonathan Waxman and runs a seasonal, farm-to-table menu that’s as good as any standalone New York restaurant. Huevos rancheros, avocado toast, freshly sourced ingredients, and that quiet morning energy that makes it feel like a treat. If you’re grabbing something lighter, stop by the lobby farm stand for fresh fruit compliments of the house.
AM
9:00 – 11:00 AM
Central Park, on the hotel’s terms
The hotel is one block from the park’s south entrance and they’ve thought about how guests experience it. Ask the concierge about complimentary Central Park Conservancy guides for an ecology and history walk, or borrow one of the hotel’s yoga mats and find a quiet patch of lawn. Bikes are available nearby if you want to cover more ground.
MID
11:00 AM – 2:00 PM
Midtown at your own pace
MoMA is a 10-minute walk south. The Museum of Arts and Design is just as close. For shopping, Fifth Avenue and the shops along Columbus Circle are within easy reach. The hotel’s electric Audi house car can drop you within a 15-block radius, a small but thoughtful touch.
PM
2:00 – 5:00 PM
Afternoon in the sanctuary
This is the part most NYC hotels miss: coming back actually feels good here. Use the Field House fitness center or book a wellness treatment in-room from Bamford or HigherDose. The rooms feel like staying at a friend’s place — a friend with great taste, chic style, and a serious green thumb. The reclaimed wood, plants, and window daybed make it very easy to stay put.
EVE
6:00 – 8:00 PM
Evening at the bar
The bar at 1 Hotel Central Park has the kind of atmosphere that’s hard to find in Midtown: intimate, stylish, and not trying too hard. It’s ideal for a pre-dinner cocktail with craft drinks and the kind of warm, green-filled space that makes you want to stay for one more round.
EVE
8:00 PM ONWARD
Dinner, your way
Stay in and dine at Jams: the evening menu is excellent and the candlelit restaurant transforms beautifully at night. Or head out. Lincoln Center is minutes away, as are some of the city’s best Upper West Side and Midtown restaurants. The concierge team is excellent at recommendations and reservations.
The Details That Make It Different
THE DESIGN
The front door is made from 1,600 reclaimed locust branches. The wood paneling in guest rooms is salvaged from Brooklyn’s old Domino Sugar Factory and local water towers. And instead of a plastic do-not-disturb sign, guests use a rock — sourced on a field trip by hotel employees to upstate New York — to place outside their door when their room is ready for a refresh. It’s a small thing, but it’s exactly the kind of detail that makes the sustainability story feel real rather than just decorative.
THE SUSTAINABILITY STORY
This isn’t a hotel that posts about sustainability once a year. The property is LEED-certified and tracks carbon emissions, energy use, water stewardship, and waste diversion on an ongoing basis. The 36,000 ivy plants blanketing the exterior produce oxygen, absorb greenhouse gases, reduce the building’s surface temperature in summer, and insulate it in winter. Filtered drinking water is available at every tap. Zero-waste cocktails at Jams. Recycled paper hangers in the closet. Seed paper stationery on the desk that you can actually plant. If this kind of thing matters to you, you’ll notice it everywhere you look.
THE ROOM
Guest rooms are quieter and more personal than you’d expect from a Midtown property. Walking in for the first time, the feeling is less “hotel room” and more “staying at a friend’s place” — a friend with great taste, chic style, and a serious green thumb. Organic cotton linens, non-toxic mattresses, in-room greenery, filtered water at every tap, a Goodthings minibar with health-forward snacks. Many rooms have window daybeds overlooking the city, one of those small details that make a stay feel genuinely memorable.
THE PLANT TEAM
Every single one of the 40,000 plants throughout the property is real. A dedicated plant care team comes in five days a week to maintain them. It sounds like a small thing until you’re standing in the middle of Midtown Manhattan, surrounded by living, thriving greenery, and you realize how much that changes the feeling of a space.
THE BUILDING’S HISTORY
Before it was a hotel, this was an office building. And for eight of the hotel’s first eleven years of operation, there was a dentist’s office on the 19th floor. The dentist finally left, the hotel renovated the space, and now the entire top floor has 18-foot ceilings and wraparound terraces. The team calls it the Elm House. It’s spectacular. We love a good origin story.
THE RECOGNITION
The property was awarded a 2025 MICHELIN Key, placing it among the world’s most outstanding hotels. Recognition that reflects both the quality of the stay and the care behind how it’s delivered.
Booking Through Coastline
As a Virtuoso member agency, Coastline Travel Group advisors can access exclusive perks when booking 1 Hotel Central Park, including complimentary upgrades (based on availability), daily breakfast for two, and a hotel credit.
Whether you’re visiting New York for the first time or the fifteenth, 1 Hotel Central Park offers something that’s genuinely hard to find in this city: a place that makes you want to slow down. Book it for a long weekend, a special occasion, or any trip where the hotel itself is part of the experience.
Ready to book?
Connect with a Coastline Travel Group advisor and book 1 Hotel Central Park with exclusive Virtuoso perks: complimentary breakfast, hotel credits, and VIP treatment from arrival to departure.