Anantara Hotels & Resorts, whose Thailand properties starred in the third season of the hit HBO show The White Lotus, will open its first U.S. hotel. Anantara Miami Resort & Residences will debut in 2030, officials shared exclusively with Forbes Travel Guide.
A joint effort from Bangkok-based Minor Hotels (Anantara’s parent company) and Miami developers One Thousand Group, the 50-story tower will house 50 hotel suites, 100 private branded condominium residences and 120 resort residences that owners can make available to hotel guests. Rising above Biscayne Bay, the waterfront hotel in Miami’s Edgewater neighborhood will also feature Thai-inspired service, wellness and cultural immersion.
“Miami is the perfect location for the debut of our luxury Anantara brand into the U.S,” said William E. Heinecke, founder and chairman of Minor International, which owns Minor Hotels. “We are excited to partner with One Thousand Group to bring this vision to reality.”
Architecture by KPF (whose work includes Dubai’s Atlantis, The Royal and Seoul’s Lotte World Tower) and ODP Architecture & Design (which collaborated with One Thousand Group and Major Food Group on the design of under-construction Villa Miami) will capture the cosmopolitan feel of Miami and subtle Thailand-inspired touches that represent the Anantara brand’s heritage.
Milan-based designer Patricia Urquiola, the talent behind The Rome EDITION and Casa Brera, a Luxury Collection Hotel, Milan, will oversee the interiors for her first residential project in the U.S.
The hotel will take up the building’s first three floors. It will have luxurious amenities, like a top-floor helipad and a pool terrace, but its wellness program is what will distinguish the property among Miami’s crowded field of properties. Anantara Miami will aim to be an urban sanctuary blending ancient Thai healing and modern longevity regimens at its vitality center, which will specialize in movement, nutrition and recovery.
“True luxury is time, the freedom to pause, to explore and to experience the world more deeply,” Heinecke said.
At the crossroads of Miami’s Edgewater, Design District and Wynwood neighborhoods, Anantara Miami will be in easy reach of the Pérez Art Museum, the Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science and the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts.
Anantara, which means “without end” in Sanskrit, launched in 2001 in Thailand. Known for hotels that embrace their destinations, the company has grown to more than 50 properties in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Indian Ocean. Americans will recognize the brand from season three of The White Lotus, which filmed at Thailand properties Anantara Lawana Koh Samui Resort, Anantara Mai Khao Phuket Villas and Anantara Bophut Koh Samui Resort.
The collection also includes the Forbes Travel Guide Recommended Anantara New York Palace Budapest Hotel, a grand Neo-Renaissance landmark that’s home to the famous New York Café. The Four-Star Anantara Kihavah Maldives Villas hosts the Maldives’ only underwater caviar restaurant and the country’s first overwater observatory. And at Anantara Golden Triangle Elephant Camp & Resort, you can book “Jungle Bubbles” — transparent, globe-shaped suites that let you sleep among the elephants. All the properties practice nam jai (or “water from the heart”), a Thai philosophy of selfless generosity and hospitality performed without the expectation of reward.
“Anantara Miami Resort & Residences introduces something entirely new to the U.S.,” said Kevin Venger, co-founder of One Thousand Group, whose previous projects include the One Thousand Museum, the last residential building designed by the late Pritzker Prize-winning architect Zaha Hadid. “It’s not just another branded residence.”
