Howard Smith Wharves’ Hotel Has New Owners and a Fresh Vision to Become an Eco-Friendly Luxury Resort

Photo: Courtesy of Crystalbrook Collection

Hospitality company Crystalbrook Collection has picked up the keys and it’s on a mission to reduce the hotel’s footprint. It plans to get produce from within a three-hour radius and replace all single-use plastics with sustainable solutions.

The Fantauzzo, the art-filled hotel under the Story Bridge, first opened in March 2019. It was named for the artist Vincent Fantauzzo, whose celebrity portraits of Heath Ledger, Baz Luhrmann and Asher Keddie (Fantauzzo’s wife) adorn the walls. The hotel was run by the Art Series Hotel group, and its new owner, Crystalbrook Collection, has gone with a new name to signal the handover, switching to the artist’s first name (it’s keeping 500 of Fantauzzo’s popular artworks on the walls).

Now called Crystalbrook Vincent Hotel, the Howard Smith Wharves luxury accommodation has made a few other significant changes. Plastic key cards will be replaced with ones made of recycled wood. Coat hangers are constructed from recycled paper and toothbrushes are made from sugar cane and cornstarch.

It’s part of a vision to elevate the hotel’s focus on sustainability. Starting with ditching single-use plastics and ensuring all the hotel’s bathrooms are 100 per cent waste-free.

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“Everything is reusable, recyclable or biodegradable,” says Crystalbrook Vincent’s CEO Geoff York of the approach to the hotel’s zero-waste bathrooms. The hotel is also working to minimise its food carbon footprint by ensuring that at least 80 per cent of all produce served comes from within a three-hour radius. “And we’re embracing technology to reduce the need for waste,” says York in a statement. There’s paperless check-in and check-out, and in-room tablets to reduce paper menus or folders of hotel information.

It’s the seventh hotel for Crystalbrook Collection, which has holiday accommodation in Byron Bay, Cairns, Newcastle, Sydney, plus a superyacht marina in Port Douglas and hotel restaurants and spas. The company focuses on sustainability across all its operations: it’s banned plastic straws and plastic water bottles, and uses refillable shampoo, conditioner and soap dispensers in the bathrooms. It says it’s saved more than three million plastic bottles from landfill in the past two years.

The company is also farming its own beef through Crystalbrook Station to keep its food footprint and waste low. The 166-room hotel will also be cash-free (including at ground-floor restaurant Polpetta) and it is reducing its paper use by 90 per cent. What hasn’t changed is the hotel’s five-star location and view, or its luxurious rooftop pool and bar. Rooms start from $275 per night.

Crystalbrook Vincent
5 Boundary Street, Brisbane
(07) 3515 0700

crystalbrookcollection.com/vincent.

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