Bürgenstock Resort

The boat from Lucerne takes about half an hour to reach Kehrsiten, a landing stage at the foot of a wall of rock. A funicular climbs from there, and at the top is a plateau 500 metres above the lake with a village of hotels on it. This is Bürgenstock Resort, in the canton of Nidwalden, and the arrangement, boat, funicular, hotel, has been the way to arrive since the 1880s.

History

Two Obwalden builders, Franz Josef Bucher and Josef Durrer, bought the ridge and opened the Grand Hotel in 1873. They added the Park Hotel in 1888, built the funicular from Kehrsiten the same year, and opened the Palace Hotel in 1904. In 1905 Bucher built the Hammetschwand lift, an open-air elevator up the cliff face to the ridge's highest point; at 152 metres it is still the tallest exterior lift in Europe. The Bucher family and their successors ran the plateau as a self-contained world with its own power, water and farms.

After the Second World War the Frey family, who had taken over, made it a retreat for film people. Audrey Hepburn married Mel Ferrer in the Bürgenstock chapel in September 1954 and kept a house there for years; Sophia Loren lived on the ridge in the 1960s. By the 2000s the hotels were tired, and in 2008 Katara Hospitality of Qatar bought the estate. It closed most of the plateau, spent about 550 million Swiss francs over nine years, and reopened in 2017.

Architecture and design

The rebuilt resort keeps the two historic houses, the Palace Hotel and the 1888 Park Hotel, and adds new buildings in stone, glass and larch that are set low against the ridge. The Bürgenstock Hotel, the main new house, is a long horizontal block whose rooms all face the lake; its Alpine Spa cantilevers over the drop. The Waldhotel, a health-focused hotel in the woods behind, was designed by Matteo Thun with terraced facades planted like a hillside. The 1879 Taverne is the restored village inn. Cars are kept to the edge of the plateau and the resort is walked or driven by electric shuttle.

Rooms and suites

The resort's rooms are spread across the four hotels. The Bürgenstock Hotel has the largest number and the lake views, with terraces and floor-to-ceiling glass; the Palace Hotel keeps its 1904 proportions and high ceilings; the Waldhotel pairs medical and wellness programmes with quiet forest rooms; and the Taverne 1879 offers the simplest rooms in the oldest building. There are also residences on the ridge for longer stays.

Dining

Around a dozen restaurants and bars are spread across the plateau, from Asian and Mediterranean dining rooms in the Bürgenstock Hotel to the panelled restaurant of the Taverne 1879 and the Palace Hotel's Belle Époque rooms. The lake-facing terraces are used through the summer; a cigar lounge and several bars cover the evenings. The choice is wide enough that guests on a week's stay rarely eat in the same room twice.

Wellness

The Alpine Spa in the Bürgenstock Hotel covers about 10,000 square metres over three floors. Its outdoor infinity pool runs to the edge of the building above the lake, and there are indoor pools, saunas, steam rooms, a hammam and treatment suites. The Waldhotel adds a medical centre with doctors, physiotherapy and diagnostic programmes. Outside, the resort keeps a nine-hole golf course, tennis courts and the Felsenweg, a cliff path to the Hammetschwand lift.

Weddings and events

The chapel where Audrey Hepburn married is still used for weddings, and receptions follow in the Palace Hotel's historic ballroom or on the lake terraces. The resort has conference rooms and a ballroom in the new buildings for meetings and incentives, with the whole plateau available for a private takeover. Its position, isolated but 30 minutes from Lucerne, makes it a frequent choice for board retreats and Swiss corporate events. It is the luxury hotel in Bürgenstock in the strictest sense, since the resort is the village.

Location

The resort stands on the Bürgenstock ridge, above the Lake Lucerne municipalities of Stansstad and Ennetbürgen. By car it is about 20 minutes from Lucerne and 60 from Zurich Airport, which is the nearest international airport; the resort also uses the lake boat from Lucerne to Kehrsiten and its own funicular. The nearest railway station is Stansstad, on the Zentralbahn line between Lucerne and Engelberg.