Badrutt's Palace Hotel

Johannes Badrutt made St. Moritz a winter resort with a wager in 1864: he promised a party of English summer guests at his Kulm hotel that they would find the Engadine sunnier in winter than London, and offered to pay their journey if they disagreed. His son Caspar built on that discovery. Badrutt's Palace Hotel, the luxury hotel in St. Moritz that the whole valley identifies by its tower, opened above the lake in 1896, and the Badrutt family has owned it ever since.

History

Caspar Badrutt raised the Palace on the slope between the village and the lake and ran it until his death in 1904. The family has never sold it; Hansjürg Badrutt steered the house through the second half of the twentieth century. Alfred Hitchcock spent his honeymoon here in December 1926 and returned almost every year for decades, to the same suite. In 1936 the hotel bought the Chesa Veglia, an Engadine farmhouse of 1658 a few steps away, and turned it into its restaurant annexe. The King's Club opened in the 1960s as one of the first nightclubs in the Alps and became King's Social House in 2019. The Palace Wellness centre followed in 2014 and IGNIV by Andreas Caminada in 2016.

Architecture and design

The hotel is a long block of stone and render with a neo-Gothic tower at its centre, set on a terrace that drops to the lake so that the south side gains a storey and every lake-facing room looks down on the water and across to Piz Rosatsch. Le Grand Hall, the lounge where tea is served, is the heart of the house with its painted beams, deep armchairs and the view; the Renaissance Bar beside it keeps its panelling. The building is listed as a Swiss cultural property of regional significance.

Rooms and suites

About 155 rooms and suites, roughly a quarter of them suites, are spread over the main building. Rooms on the lake side are the ones to ask for; the tower rooms are the most private, and the largest suites on the upper floors run along the lake front. Furniture is traditional, with antiques and heavy fabrics rather than alpine pine.

Dining

Le Restaurant is the formal dining room, where jackets are expected at dinner. La Coupole-Matsuhisa pairs Nobu Matsuhisa's Japanese-Peruvian cooking with the glass roof of the former tennis hall. IGNIV by Andreas Caminada holds a Michelin star for its sharing menus. Across the lane, Chesa Veglia divides its three floors between the Patrizier Stuben, the Chadafö Grill and the Pizzeria Heuboden. King's Social House, in the old nightclub, serves Jason Atherton's menu before the dancing starts, and Le Grand Hall does afternoon tea.

Wellness

Palace Wellness, opened in 2014 on the lake side, has an indoor pool, a heated outdoor pool with the mountains in view, a hammam and treatment rooms. The hotel keeps tennis courts in summer and an ice rink in winter, and the Chantarella funicular to the Corviglia ski runs leaves from the village above.

Weddings and events

The Embassy Ballroom is the principal room for balls and weddings, with Le Grand Hall and the Madonna Room for receptions and dinners. The social calendar of the valley runs through the hotel: the snow polo on the frozen lake in January and the White Turf horse races in February bring their own parties here.

Location

Via Serlas 27 is in St. Moritz Dorf, the upper village, at about 1,850 metres, with the designer shops of Via Serlas at the door and the lake below. The station of the Rhaetian Railway, where the Albula and Bernina lines meet, is at the foot of the hill; Engadin Airport at Samedan, for private aircraft, is 5 kilometres away, and Zurich airport about 200 kilometres, three hours by train. The hotel closes between seasons and opens for winter from early December to late March and for summer from June to September.