Beau-Rivage Geneva

On the Quai du Mont-Blanc, facing the lake and the Jet d'Eau, stands a five-storey house of 1865: Beau-Rivage, the oldest grand hotel of Geneva and the only one of the city's palace hotels still run by the family that founded it. It is remembered above all as the place where Empress Elisabeth of Austria died in 1898.

History

Jean-Jacques Mayer, a hotelier from Germany, opened the Beau-Rivage in 1865 on the newly built quay of the right bank, in a building designed by the architect Antoine Krafft. The hotel received the crowned heads and statesmen who passed through Geneva in the nineteenth century, and the Mayer family has owned and directed it without interruption since, now in its fifth generation. Charles II, the deposed Duke of Brunswick, lived his last years at the hotel and died there in 1873, leaving his fortune to the city of Geneva, which built the Brunswick Monument on the quay opposite in his memory.

On 10 September 1898 Empress Elisabeth of Austria, travelling incognito, left the hotel to board a steamer and was stabbed on the quay by the anarchist Luigi Lucheni. She was carried back to the Beau-Rivage and died there in her room that afternoon. The hotel keeps the memory of the event, and the empress is also recalled by a monument on the quay. In 1919 the Beau-Rivage received delegates to the founding of the League of Nations, and its salons later served the international organisations that settled in Geneva.

Architecture and design

Krafft's building is a classical lakeside block with a central pediment and balconies, and the interior keeps its original atrium: a glazed inner court with a fountain, galleries on each floor and a sweeping staircase. The decoration is of the period, with stucco, mirrors and chandeliers, and the rooms have been renewed over the years in a traditional style. The hotel is small by the standards of its rivals, which is part of its character.

Rooms and suites

The hotel has 95 rooms and suites, of which 43 are suites, an unusually high proportion. Most face the lake across the Quai du Mont-Blanc, with the Jet d'Eau and Mont Blanc in view on clear days; several of the largest suites occupy the corners of the building.

Dining

Le Chat-Botté, the hotel's restaurant, holds a Michelin star and serves a classical French cuisine with a lakeside terrace in summer. The bar and the atrium lounge serve lighter meals and afternoon tea.

Weddings and events

The hotel's historic salons and the atrium host weddings, receptions and dinners, and the meeting rooms serve boards and small conferences, with the lake as a backdrop. Weddings at Beau-Rivage are intimate rather than large, suited to a ceremony in the salon followed by dinner facing the Jet d'Eau.

Location

Beau-Rivage stands at Quai du Mont-Blanc 13 on the right bank of Geneva, facing the lake and the Jet d'Eau, a short walk from the Pâquis and the Brunswick Monument, with the Bains des Pâquis on the jetty opposite. Genève-Cornavin railway station lies ten minutes away on foot; the train or a car reaches Geneva Airport in about 15 minutes. Among the luxury hotels in Geneva along the quay, it is the oldest and the only family-owned one.