Guess who’s back, back again? Starwood Hotels is back—tell a friend.
It’s official: SH Hotels & Resorts, the operating arm behind 1 Hotels & Homes, Baccarat Hotels & Residences, and Treehouse Hotels, has rebranded as Starwood Hotels, a hyper recognizable name within the hotel industry up until the company and its IP was acquired by Marriott International in 2016. And though Marriott now owns those original Starwood brands, from W to Westin, it never owned the name, which was retained by Barry Sternlicht, the chairman & CEO of Starwood Capital Group.
Starwood was originally founded as a REIT before being acquired by Sternlicht in 1995. From there, it rose with its trendy and seminal brands, which included the aforementioned W, arguably the first so-called “lifestyle” brand to grow and expand at scale.
“Reintroducing the Starwood Hotels name is personally very exciting for me. It’s a tribute to a legacy that millions of people know and trust—and it comes at a decisive moment in our company’s history,” said Sternlicht.
The past 10 years saw SH Hotels with two brands in the luxury space in 1 Hotels, an eco-driven, sustainably minded luxury brand, and Baccarat, where opulence and decadence converge. The former launched in 2015 with the opening of 1 Hotel South Beach and New York City’s 1 Hotel Central Park, unique and curious for its biophilic design and sustainable practices. Over the past decade, the brand has expanded to Brooklyn, West Hollywood, Sanya, China, Toronto, Nashville, San Francisco, Hanalei Bay, and London.
“As we reflect on a decade of 1 Hotels, we’re proud of how far we’ve come in inspiring guests to care for the planet,” said Sternlicht. “With our new openings, we’re bringing our mission to new markets and continuing to raise the bar for sustainable luxury.”
Stern to Bow
A spate of new 1 properties will open through 2025, including Seattle, Melbourne, Copenhagen and Tokyo. Openings beyond 2025 include Cabo San Lucas, Mexico; Paris; Elounda Hills, Crete; Austin, Texas; Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
The first Baccarat opened in 2015 in New York with a star-studded opening party that included the likes of Martha Stewart. Starwood says that the brand will be expanding into global destinations in the coming years, including Rome, Florence, Riyadh, Dubai and the Maldives.
Treehouse is more whimsical by design; it’s a concept, Sternlicht once said, that feels more like home than a hotel—”cozy, welcoming, warm and somehow familiar.” The first Treeehouse opened in London in 2019 with more to come in Manchester, U.K., Silicon Valley, Miami and Adelaide, Australia, to name four.
The brands now under Starwood’s guidance are, Sternlicht said, unlike the lodestar W. He decided to leave that brand alone. “I didn’t want to do another typical hotel brand after W. The world doesn’t need another brand, it needs a better 1,” he jokingly remarked.
“By reviving the Starwood Hotels name, we aim to marry this trusted legacy of youth, innovation, and guest focus with our modern, tech-enabled, personalized approach to hospitality. As we take this next step, we’re doubling down on our mission to inspire, innovate, and make a difference—for our guests, our partners, and the planet.”
An Old New Player
Sternlicht may not admit it but the Starwood redux could be a shot across the collective hotel industry bow, putting players on notice that a once-venerable-hospitality brand house, with a beloved loyalty program adored across the world, is back on the radar.
It’ll be up to Raul Leal, CEO of Starwood Hotels, to lead the company and do the quotidian heavy lifting. “Starwood Hotels once disrupted the industry under Barry’s leadership,” he said. Can they do it again?
Leal up to now has been shy to offer specific details on what may be in the mixing bowl, beyond heralding the now Starwood’s future openings and growth potential. At a hotel investment conference earlier this year, Leal said the company was waiting until the 10th anniversary of SH Hotels & Resorts to make the changeover to Starwood. Though not specific or promising anything concrete, he did postulate that there could be hotels in the market that may seek to convert under one of Starwood’s current three brands—”assets that have a brand that is obsolete or the owner wants a higher premium,” Leal said. He also did not rule out the potential of launching new brands or bolting on another through acquisition. “We look at assets all the time,” he said.
Meanwhile, Starwood Capital, with approximately $115 billion of assets under management, has a large hotel portfolio of hotels across different brands that, at its discretion, could decide to move into one of its own brands, a process or strategy that is merely speculative at this time. Between 2013 and 2014, Starwood acquired three British hospitality groups: De Vere Group, Four-Pillars Hotels and Principal Hayley Group. In 2017, it invested $250 million in Yotel. In January 2024, Starwood Capital acquired 10 Edwardian Group hotels in London for an undisclosed sum. The hotels included the Radisson Blu Edwardian Bloomsbury Street Hotel, the Radisson Blu Edwardian Hampshire Hotel, and the Radisson Blu Edwardian Mercer Street Hotel.
“The name change is a strategy,” Leal said, stressing that the goal remains quality over quantity. Though the SPG loyalty program may not be revived in exactly the same iteration, a new, broader loyalty program is in the works. Starwood currently offers the MISSION—1 Hotels’ membership program, which it says delivers “a hyper-personalized guest experience while providing a platform to give back to the planet.”
As part of the growth strategy of 1 Hotels & Homes and Baccarat Hotels & Residences, several new branded residences are also in development. Existing properties include 1 Homes South Beach and Baccarat Residences New York. Upcoming Baccarat Residences will complement hotel openings in Dubai, the Maldives and Riyadh, while new 1 Homes locations are launching alongside hotels in Melbourne, Crete, and San Miguel de Allende. Baccarat Brickell is planned as a standalone development.
