Grand Hotel Zermatterhof

On Zermatt's Bahnhofstrasse, where electric taxis and the odd horse-drawn carriage make up the traffic, the Grand Hotel Zermatterhof has received guests since 1879. It belongs to the Burgergemeinde Zermatt, the corporation of the village's old families, which makes it one of the few grand hotels in the Alps owned by a community rather than a family or a group.

History

Zermatt became famous almost overnight in July 1865, when Edward Whymper's party made the first ascent of the Matterhorn and four of its members died on the descent. Climbers and then tourists followed, and the village's hotel trade, led at first by the Seiler family, expanded quickly. The Burgergemeinde, keen to keep a share of the business in local hands, built its own house and opened the Zermatterhof in 1879.

The railway from Visp arrived in 1891 and the Gornergrat line opened in 1898, and once skiing took hold in the twentieth century the summer climbing base became a resort of two seasons. The Zermatterhof was enlarged and modernised with the village and stayed in community ownership throughout. Burgergemeinden exist across Switzerland: corporations of the families whose citizenship of a commune goes back generations, which in many villages own land, forests and alpine pasture. In Zermatt the corporation also went into the hotel business.

Architecture and design

The building is a solid late nineteenth-century block with rows of balconies and a steep roof, set back from the street behind a small garden. It went up when the rest of Zermatt was a cluster of dark larch chalets and granaries raised on stone discs against mice, and its scale still marks it out on the Bahnhofstrasse. Successive renovations have modernised the interiors in a restrained Alpine manner, with much local wood.

Rooms and suites

Rooms and suites divide between those facing the Matterhorn and those looking over the village roofs. The Matterhorn side is the one to request: from the upper floors the mountain stands at the head of the valley, 4,478 metres high, catching the first light before the village below.

Dining

Prato Borni is the formal restaurant, with a seasonal gourmet menu, and Lusi serves Swiss and Alpine dishes in a more relaxed room. The bar fills after skiing, and in summer meals move out to the garden.

Wellness

The Vita borni spa has an indoor pool, saunas, steam rooms and treatment rooms, much used after a day on the Matterhorn ski area, which links Zermatt with Cervinia in Italy across the Theodul Pass.

Weddings and events

The hotel has a ballroom and smaller salons for banquets, seminars and receptions, and it hosts weddings in both seasons. Couples often marry in the parish church of St. Mauritius, close by on the Kirchplatz, or in one of the chapels of the surrounding hamlets, and hold the dinner at the hotel.

Location

Zermatt is closed to petrol cars. Drivers leave their vehicles at Täsch, five kilometres down the valley, and take the shuttle train, or travel all the way by rail from Visp on the Matterhorn Gotthard line. The hotel collects guests at the station by electric vehicle, and the Glacier Express to St. Moritz leaves from the same platforms. The Gornergrat railway, the Sunnegga funicular and the cable cars towards the Matterhorn Glacier Paradise are all close. The Kirchplatz and the Mountaineers' Cemetery, where many of the Matterhorn's victims are buried, are a few steps away. Geneva and Zurich airports are each about three and a half hours away by train. For a luxury hotel in Zermatt, the address could hardly be more central.