ASIA
Six Senses Bhutan
Providing an alternative to the circuit of Aman hotels that has been operating in this eastern Himalayan kingdom for years, Six Senses — a Thailand-based company known for its spa resorts — will open a collection of 82 suites and villas spread across five individually designed lodges this year. After its August debut, guests can stay at just one of the contemporary Bhutanese-style lodges, several or all of them, with Six Senses arranging transit between the properties in Thimphu, Punakha, Gangtey, Bumthang and Paro (rates not available).
Aman Shanghai, China
When it opens in the fall, Aman’s fourth Chinese property will sit in a forested grove on Shanghai’s outskirts, where the company has painstakingly reconstructed 50 Ming- and Qing-era village houses. It’s also replanted 10,000 camphor trees from the province of Jiangxi, 500 miles southwest of Shanghai. All were salvaged from a valley floor before a new dam flooded it (rates not available).
EUROPE
Hôtel de Crillon, Paris
After closing in March 2013 for what was meant to be a two-year renovation, this landmark 18th-century palace hotel will finally reopen in 2017, emerging as a Rosewood with two signature suites designed by fashion grandee Karl Lagerfeld (rates not available).
Il Castelfalfi, Tuscany
All eyes may be on Rome’s Hotel Eden, which re-launches as part of the Dorchester Collection in April after an 18-month redo (from $670), but Tuscany’s also getting a luxe stay this spring. The five-star, new-build 120-room Il Castelfalfi debuts as a new mainstay on an existing 2,700-acre property that’s already got two golf courses, several restaurants, a four-star hotel and villa residences (from $340).
USA
Four Seasons Hotel at the Surf Club, Surfside, Fla.
Pritzker Prize-winning architect Richard Meier and design- and fashion-world favorite Joseph Dirand team up for this 77-room hotel opening in the first part of 2017. Located between Bal Harbour and Miami Beach, it repurposes and greatly expands the Mediterranean Revival-style Surf Club, a mid-20th-century hangout for the likes of Elizabeth Taylor and Frank Sinatra (from $899).
Freehand LA
Los Angeles has a crop of luxe NYC transplant hotels opening next year, including satellites of the Dream, James and NoMad. But this Downtown LA haute hostel will be turning heads without high prices when it opens in March. Having designed the Freehands in Miami and Chicago, Roman and Williams returns to create the 226 rooms and public spaces here, which include a rooftop pool befitting the Golden State (from $62).
San Francisco Proper Hotel
Celeb designer Kelly Wearstler shows off her skills at the second Proper property created by her husband, developer and Viceroy founder Brad Korzen. (The first, which she also decorated, landed in Hollywood over the summer.) This June-opening SF outlet sits in a restored 1907 flatiron building in the Mid-Market nabe, with 131 rooms and four restaurants, including an indoor-outdoor rooftop spot boasting major views (from $329).
SOUTH AMERICA/MEXICO/CARIBBEAN
Chileno Bay Resort and Residences, Los Cabos, Mexico
Auberge Resorts debuts the only hotel on Cabo’s sole year-round swimmable beach in February. Its 60 guest rooms and 32 two-, three- and four-bedroom villas are bound to impress with private terraces and floor-to-ceiling windows, while the rest of the property says “hola” with a three-tiered infinity pool, taco and tequila beach bar and a water sports center built into a beachside cave (from $575).
Itz’ana, Placencia, Belize
Ford model-turned-designer Samuel Amoia is responsible for the bohemian look and feel of this Caribbean-side resort, whose sea-to-table restaurant, pool, roof deck, rum bar and library will open in March, along with the first 20 of its beach-chic rooms and penthouses. By fall, another 27 suites and loft cottages, plus 47 larger villas residences — all along the lagoon or beach — will come online (from $295).
Hotel Inglaterra, Havana, Cuba
The first American-managed, five-star property to debut in Cuba in decades, the iconic Hotel Inglaterra will get a new lease on life when it reopens this summer as an 83-room member of Starwood’s Luxury Collection. A carefully curated top-to-bottom renovation, preservation and redecoration project will reinvigorate the legendary neoclassical-style stay, which first welcomed guests in 1875 (rates not available). It is essentially Havana’s answer to Rio’s grand dame, the Copacabana Palace.
AFRICA
The Silo, Cape Town, South Africa
Occupying the elevator tower of a 90-year-old grain-storage complex on the V&A Waterfront, this luxe 11-story stay — created by designer Thomas Heatherwick and South Africa’s Royal Portfolio of hotels — will share space with former Puma CEO Jochen Zeitz’s new contemporary art museum. Come March, guests will be able to ogle views of the ocean, city and Table Mountain from the Silo’s rooftop pool, restaurant and bar — as well as its 28 rooms and suites (from $880).
MIDDLE EAST
Brown Jerusalem, Israel
Leon Avigad, who brought high-style boutique stays to Tel Aviv with Brown TLV and Brown Beach House, is opening his first spot in Jerusalem this winter. It reimagines a late 19th-century Ottoman-era villa as a 23-room hotel, adding a rooftop spa and Jacuzzi as well as an underground bar in the building’s former water well (from $265).