Badrutt's Palace Hotel

Badrutt's Palace Hotel
General information
Location	St Moritz, Switzerland
Coordinates	46°29′49.2″N 9°50′27.6″E / 46.497000°N 9.841000°E / 46.497000; 9.841000
Opening	1896
Other information
Number of rooms	159
Number of suites	38

Badrutt's Palace Hotel is an historic, internationally known luxury hotel in St Moritz, Switzerland.

The existing Hotel Beau Rivage was purchased by Caspar Badrutt in 1892. He hired the architects Chiodera & Tschudi to completely rebuild it, and it emerged four years later in 1896 as Badrutt's Palace Hotel, a successor to the Krup Hause resort hotel which had been the first cold weather winter resort.^[1]

It is owned and operated by the same Badrutt family, now in their third generation, who created winter tourism in St. Moritz, which had previously been an exclusively summer destination.^[2] The most prominent hotel in St. Moritz, where royalty, the nouveau riche and idle rich, artists, dignitaries, and performers have stayed at the hotel.

The tower was destroyed in a fire in 1967 and subsequently restored and rebuilt.^[3]

View from Palace balcony

Dining room

The founder of the hotel built the first half-pipe luge/skeleton/bobsled run to support his guest's interests — and as a community service to prevent further injuries from sledding in the narrow streets of the village.

The hotel is one of the certified The Leading Hotels of the World. The hotel has 159 rooms, 38 of which are suites. It contains the Le Restaurant which serves French cuisine and others such as the Le Relais restaurant run by Nobuyuki Matsuhisa which serves traditional Japanese with Peruvian influences, the Belle Epoque restaurant and cocktail and sushi bar, the Renaisssance Bar, the 55-seat restaurant Le Bistro run by Frédéric Breuil and created by Italian designer Maurizio Argenti, the Chesa Veglia and the Acapulco snack bar.^[4]

History

It began with Johannes Badrutt. After purchasing the former Hotel Beau Rivage in 1892, his son Caspar contracted the architects, Chiodera & Tschudi to convert it to the Palace Hotel. To begin with it was a recreational destination only during the summer months, but St. Moritz developed into an elegant centre for Alpine winter sports, after Johannes Badrutt made a bet with English summer guests. Since then, the development of the Palace Hotel has been part of the Badrutt family. The historical house, Chesa Veglia, was purchased and converted in 1935, in order to offer guests of Badrutt’s Palace Hotel a nosh outside the hotel’s restaurants. With the death of Hans Badrutt in 1953, who had taken on the directorship from his father, Caspar Badrutt after his death in 1904, the directorship was passed on to his wife Helen and her son Andrea Badrutt, who later, together with his brother, Hansjürg Badrutt, took over. The historical tower and symbol of St. Moritz was rebuilt and refurbished after a fire in 1967. After the extension of the Suot-Mulin-Complex between 1981 and 1984, which housed new suites and privately owned apartments, the management of Badrutt’s Palace Hotel was transferred to the luxury hotel chain of Rosewood Hotels and Resorts. During this period many renovations, extensions and technical installations were made that added to the substance and development of Badrutt’s Palace Hotel. Then followed the building of the «Kids’ Club Palazzino», the opening of the shopping mile «Palace Galerie», and the opening of the Helen Badrutt and Hans Badrutt Suites. In 2004, the distinguished hotelier, Hans Wiedemann took over as Managing Director and with this began a complete and comprehensive restructuring of all the hotel areas including the infrastructure, service and facilities. In order to preserve the historic interior of Badrutt’s Palace Hotel for another 100 years, the many and thorough renovations were completed in 3 stages. Along with the preservation of the historical substance, the other main issue of Hans Wiedemann lies with renewal of the infrastructure. The heat pump is an innovative source of energy fed from Lake St. Moritz, which during the 2006/2007 winter season, covered 80% of total energy requirements. «Palace Wellness», the façade and the refurbishing of the rooms have cost over 70 million Swiss Francs.^{[citation needed]}

References

External links

• Wikimedia Commons has media related to Badrutt's Palace Hotel.

• Badrutt's Palace Hotel website
• A Winter Day at the Badrutt's Palace Hotel A historic film from 1930

Coordinates: 46°29′49″N 9°50′28″E / 46.497°N 9.841°E / 46.497; 9.841