Kulm Hotel St. Moritz

The hotel stands at the top of the village, which is what Kulm means, on the slope above Lake St. Moritz with the Engadine valley opening to the south-west. Johannes Badrutt bought a pension of twelve beds here in 1856 and turned it into the first hotel in St. Moritz. Kulm Hotel St. Moritz has been on the same site since, and most of what the resort is known for began inside it or on its lawns.

History

In the autumn of 1864 Badrutt made a wager with a group of English summer guests: come back in winter, and if you do not enjoy the sun and the dry cold he would pay their travel. They came at Christmas, stayed until Easter and the Alpine winter season was invented. In 1878 Badrutt installed a small hydroelectric plant and lit the dining room with the first electric light in Switzerland. The Cresta Run, the skeleton toboggan course that is still raced on natural ice, was first built in the winter of 1884 to 1885 by guests of the Kulm, and the St. Moritz Tobogganing Club has its clubhouse at the hotel. The Kulm Park below the hotel held the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympic Games of 1928 and 1948, and the ice pavilion built for 1928 still stands. Badrutt's son Caspar left the Kulm to build the Palace in 1896; the Kulm passed in the twentieth century to the Niarchos family, who still own it alongside the Grand Hotel Kronenhof in Pontresina.

Architecture and design

The hotel is a long building of several wings added over 150 years, with a stone base, pale render and the broad roofs of the Engadine. Inside, the public rooms keep their late nineteenth-century scale: a hall with columns, the Grand Restaurant with its painted ceiling, a bar in panelled wood. The Olympic ice pavilion in the park was restored in 2017 to a design by Norman Foster, who has a house in St. Moritz, and reopened as the Kulm Country Club with a restaurant and bar beside the skating rink.

Rooms and suites

The hotel has more than 160 rooms and suites, most facing south over the lake. Decoration ranges from Engadine pine panelling in the older wings to contemporary rooms in the renovated ones, with the suites on the upper floors having the widest views over the valley to Piz Rosatsch. Several suites bear the names of the hotel's founders and early guests.

Dining

The Grand Restaurant is the formal dining room where house guests dine on half board. The Sunny Bar, decorated with the trophies and photographs of the Cresta riders, is the hotel's oldest bar and serves Peruvian cooking in the evening. The Kulm Country Club in the park serves Italian and Engadine dishes by the ice, and Chesa al Parc, a chalet at the foot of the grounds, serves regional cooking in winter. The hotel also runs restaurants at the Corviglia ski area.

Wellness

The Kulm Spa St. Moritz covers two floors with an indoor pool that opens onto an outdoor section, saunas, a steam bath and treatment rooms, with a gym that looks at the lake. The hotel has its own nine-hole golf course in the park, tennis courts, a curling rink and the skating rink of the Olympic pavilion; the ski lifts to Corviglia are a few minutes away and a complimentary mountain pass is included in winter.

Weddings and events

The hotel's salons and the Grand Restaurant hold weddings and dinners; the Kulm Country Club and the park take receptions in summer and skating parties in winter. Meeting rooms serve the conferences and private gatherings that come to St. Moritz, and the hotel hosts events during the Snow Polo World Cup and the White Turf races on the frozen lake each winter.

Location

St. Moritz lies at 1,800 metres in the Upper Engadine in the canton of Graubünden. The hotel is at the top of the village, above the lake, five minutes on foot from the centre. St. Moritz station, terminus of the Albula line from Chur, is a short drive below; Engadin Airport at Samedan is six kilometres away and takes private aircraft, while Zurich Airport is about three and a half hours by road or rail. It is the luxury hotel in St. Moritz with the longest history.