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This eco-friendly King West hotel is the perfect place for a winter staycation

By Caroline Aksich and Sarah Kidd| Photography by Kayla Rocca
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This eco-friendly King West hotel is the perfect place for a winter staycation

After a decade-long reign as Toronto’s party hotel, the Thompson bid adieu to King West with an epic 2020 NYE blowout bash. Twenty months later, the broody, bacchanalian property was transformed into a verdant oasis that bills itself as an eco-luxury destination, featuring muted colour schemes punctuated by loads of living greenery. There are 3,300 plants spread across the lobby, restaurants, rooftop pool bar and guest rooms.

This eco-friendly King West hotel is the perfect place for a winter staycation

Even the exteriors are now adorned with Fiat-sized Muskoka boulders and giant planters full of trees (maples, river birches, eastern redbuds). For the U.S.-based boutique hotel chain, eco-luxury isn’t just a boho aesthetic—it’s also a commitment to sustainability. 1 Hotel Toronto limits single-use items—preferring chalkboards to paper, glass to plastic, and filtered Lake Ontario water to the bottled stuff.

This eco-friendly King West hotel is the perfect place for a winter staycation
This eco-friendly King West hotel is the perfect place for a winter staycation

This mission-driven hotel hasn’t sacrificed an ounce of opulence to meet their green goals: the 112 sun-soaked rooms are decked out with organic cotton linens, heated floors and rough-hewn wood furniture made from fallen Toronto trees by local artisans Just Be Woodsy. There’s even a complimentary electric car service—which will take you anywhere within three kilometres of the hotel.

At 2,000 sprawling square feet on the 10th floor, Birch House is the grandest of 1 Hotel Toronto’s 21 suites, and far removed from the bustle below. The average nightly rate for this suite? A casual $4,500:

This eco-friendly King West hotel is the perfect place for a winter staycation

Here’s the Flora lounge:

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This eco-friendly King West hotel is the perfect place for a winter staycation

They serve the luscious pear vodka–flavoured Purple Rain ($20), garnished with lychee and hibiscus:

This eco-friendly King West hotel is the perfect place for a winter staycation

1 Kitchen Toronto is the hotel’s casual ground-floor restaurant:

This eco-friendly King West hotel is the perfect place for a winter staycation
Photo by Kayla Rocca

The wagyu tacos ($24) at Harriet’s Rooftop are served in a wonton shell with jalapeño-cilantro aïoli:

This eco-friendly King West hotel is the perfect place for a winter staycation

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