Legend has it that God on his day of rest laid down his hand on this spot so he could gaze upon the beautiful world he had created. The valleys that formed where his hand lay are the environs of Gstaad, Switzerland.
Famous as a resort for the rich and famous, Gstaad is a place as majestic as it is moneyed; the glorious mountain sights with their postcard fantasy charm may be free for all to see, but the price to stay in town is reserved for only the wealthiest people in the world. And even the privileged blanch at the costs.
“It ain’t cheap,” says one high-net-worth visitor drolly. “But it’s our second-favorite place in the world,” his wife chimes in. (The first is their multimillion-dollar Florida home.)
A cup of coffee here costs $10, a beer $20. Fifty bucks is about the going rate for a simple lunch ... for one person.
If you are going to visit Gstaad, there is only one place to stay: the Gstaad Palace. Of course there are other hotels in the small town of 7,000 residents (cows number 7,800). But the Palace, as it’s simply called, is the grand dame. It has been the home away from home for jet-setters and society mavens for generations.
"In the old days, you had a lot of great hotels where you had the hotel owner who ran it with a lot of pride and love, but most of these hotels have disappeared or have been bought up by big corporations,” says Andrea Scherz, whose family has run the hotel for the past 78 years. “We are different. We’re family owned, family operated.”
And guests are treated like family, too, which is why, perhaps, there is an 80% repeat visitor rate, and why sons and daughters come back again and again as their fathers and mothers did.
Wealthy families and often entire family offices make the Palace home, sometimes for weeks on end. It’s easy to see why: The setting is par none. The lush green hills mound tall to their white-capped peaks—the Alps—pointing high in succession and enveloping sky gazers in mountains of certainty that this one spot on Earth, away from the cling-clang hustle of city life, resting squarely in the pastures, whose simple-life farmland owners restrict any sort of garish impediment upon the terrain, is special.
And the Palace has means to provide whatever services are in need: fine dining, conference facilities, private rooms, a spa and athletic activities that range from leisurely to adventurous. A small airport nearby can accommodate private jets.
Still, even with patrons from Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor to Madonna and Michael Jackson, the Palace isn’t flash. In fact, bling is frowned upon.
Scherz acknowledges this and even recounts a story that speaks to the understated aura found at the Palace: “We sometimes had customers, Russians, who came with two Hummer four-wheel drive jeeps, the ladies with furs down here, jewels, high heels at 4 o’clock in the afternoon; a lot of show. We said, ‘OK, that’s fine. It’s January. We’re happy they have maybe four or five rooms, and all that business.’ Two days later—they were supposed to stay a week or 10 days—the boss comes down to reception to check out. ‘Is something not right? Didn’t you enjoy your stay?’ we asked. His English was very poor. He just said, ‘Not bling enough.’”
To be sure, everyone is welcome at the Palace (there is a loose policy that it never has more than 10% of one nationality inside), but because of its legendary roster of guests, some people come looking for wild experiences that just aren’t for the taking. Instead, discreet wealth is prevalent.
Take the Swiss family that every year books the penthouse suite for the winter season—at a cost of $16,000 per night. They come and go. No fuss. With anonymity. Their surname likely lost on most people.
It’s not to say that all guests are without quirks or extravagances. There is the lilliputian millionaire, for example, who insists that a platform be installed on top of the entire floor in his room so he can appear taller. And there was a Japanese mogul who had an exact replica of a Tokyo restaurant built in the ballroom—chef and flatware included—so he could propose to his girlfriend in their favorite eatery.
Accommodating all these requests are the Palace staff, who are equally gracious, unassuming and helpful.
“Every guest is a king and every king is a guest,” is a mantra often recited by staffers. And it isn’t just said, it’s acted upon. When my luggage didn’t arrive from the airplane along with me, the staff went overboard to assist, several of them literally offering me the shirts off their backs. Gildo, the head maître d’, after a couple of days of getting to know me, even made a joke of it. Yet the intelligence-gathering about guests is no joke: The staff is trained to quietly know as much as they can about guests’ habits, from what they order for food and drinks to preferred seating, to all kinds of likes and dislikes. Briefing notes are passed on to guest services administrators and files are kept.
“A lot of our guests don’t even read the menus. They just order whatever they want,” says Stefanie Krisch, public relations manager for the Palace. With some 60 cooks in the kitchen during winter’s high season, individual preferences can be handled without any problems. Some guests make their way into the kitchen to show how they want things done or to personally thank a chef for a meal. All of the “behind the scenes” areas that are typically off limits to hotel guests are actually open for anyone to roam. I was shown all the nooks and crannies, from the basement, where an eco-friendly heating system has been installed—sourcing wood chips as fuel from a plant several kilometers away—to a World War II bunker that has been converted into a cozy restaurant, La Fromagerie.
It was just after that war when the Palace began to blossom under the direction of Ernst Scherz, Andrea’s grandfather. As hotel manager, he was given the opportunity to buy shares in the property in 1947 and eventually become its sole owner. Along with his wife Silvia, he went about improving the hotel’s amenities and hosting and catering to many of the parents whose children attended nearby Le Rosey, one of the most prestigious—and said to be the most expensive—boarding schools in the world. Word among society types spread.
The Palace really shone on the international stage during the 1960s, however, when it began hosting gala dinners with international stars such as Marlene Dietrich, Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman and Ella Fitzgerald, Maurice Chevalier, Gilbert Bécaud, Dionne Warwick and Petula Clark. This fostered the star factor that has been associated with the hotel now for decades.
Because the hotel was “built up” by management, and not bought by some cold financial transaction, there is an underlying humbleness to the way things are managed. Even in the forward to the book, "100 Years Gstaad Palace," Scherz’s father Ernst Andrea writes about respect, pride and being glad to be a “soup merchant.”
A Tour
Andrea Scherz greets me wearing an open-collared blue shirt, slacks and loafers—the Rolex GMT Master II on his wrist a subtle nod to his wealth and Swiss heritage. We meet in the cigar lounge just off the main bar area. Walls of windows look out onto the village of Gstaad below. A beach volleyball tournament is taking place and there are huge tents on the landscape. Paths wind down to the village from the Palace, which juts out from its perch on a rise, its white towers and turrets standing tall and in stark contrast to the greenery and homes. Chalets, all built in the same style of architecture by zoning code, lattice the hillside forest.
Scherz’s earliest memory of the hotel is Proustian. “I think my earliest was when I came for lunch,” he says, looking off and recalling a moment. “I walked up from the school with the farmers and the locals. I was like every other boy, but then I had lunch in the castle in the private dining room ... it already felt like home, the hotel.”
Scherz didn’t have a gilded upbringing. He worked his way up into his position, starting at the reception desk. His teenage son, he hopes, will follow in his footsteps.
In any case, Scherz knows I am there to write about the Palace as a potential venue for financial types. Like a proper Swiss gentleman, he efficiently swings his comments accordingly: “We have at least two financial and other true institutions who do family retreats, some sort of family office retreats, where they talk about inheritance or they talk about the future or where they try to educate the young or even the families how to cope with the current world,” he says, ticking off the property’s attributes for such affairs. “They also like to go up into the mountains or lakes and do some team building activities, or learn again about nature.”
Staid financiers don’t quite make for regaling stories, however. The most notable experience Scherz relays is about Margaret Thatcher.
“One wonderful day I had Lady Thatcher here,” he says. “She wrote part of her memoirs at the Palace. The British secret service was always around. One day one of the agents approached me and said, ‘Lady Thatcher and her husband would like to go to a little tour in a small airplane around the mountains.’ I had connections at the airport, and I called down there, and they said, ‘Sure, bring her along.’ I drove them by car in the hotel bus, Lady Thatcher in the back with her husband. We got to the plane and I said, ‘Here’s the plane, and enjoy your flight.’ And she said, ‘Hold on a minute, where are you going?’ I said, ‘If you want, I can wait for you here.’ ‘No, no, no, you come with us, so I know the plane is safe!’ I went with them. We went around the Matterhorn and we had a good chat. We really got on. It was so nice to be so close to such a personality and so down to earth.”
The same might be said of Scherz himself. In the age of “selfie” social media, you’d think celebrity pics would be rife at the Palace. (John Travolta’s marriage proposal to Kelly Preston, for instance, occurred at a New Year’s Eve party here.) Or you would think tweets are promoted. Or posts are boosted. But they aren’t.
“It’s very delicate. Discretion is a big part of our job,” Scherz says. “Sometimes my marketing team gets crazy with me, and they say, ‘Harvey Weinstein is here. We should put the picture on our social network, you and Harvey Weinstein. Can we get a picture?’ ‘No. Let them enjoy their holidays.’ We don’t bother them.”
Most VIPs arrive in winter between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Minimum stays during that time are eight nights, and there is a waiting list to even get a room. That is when prices are highest, too. But the Palace is worth the cost and the wait. It’s a treasure. It’s gold.
The Walig Hut
Winter may be high time in Gstaad, but summer allows for some special sorts of experiences. One is hiking. And the hike to the Gstaad Palace’s Walig Hut is not to be missed.
The hike to the hut—an old cow herder’s lodge—is a trek worth taking if a bit of exercise, a fabulous meal and serene views are your thing.
The hut was discovered and refurbished by Andrea Scherz himself. It remains rustic yet, in keeping with Palace decor, it’s luxurious as well. Guests can rent it by the night or simply hike up for lunch. Barbara Branco-Schiess, the rooms division manager who grew up in the nearby hills, guides you along points of interest with engaging stories of the locality.
A quick shuttle from the Palace to the foot of a path that serpentines up a short hill gets you started. Stop along the way and listen to the silence. Then allow the sounds of nature to seep in as you are surrounded by trees and pastures. You’ll step past herders’ homes and lush slopes. This is where cows are brought up several times a season to nosh on the grass. The diet allows the cows to produce a special alpine cheese. At a finely catered lunch at the Walig Hut, you’ll nibble on some of that cheese and perhaps wash it down with a glass of local wine before trekking back down the hill. Transport is always available if that glass turns into two or more.
Mountain biking, strolls and gondola rides all fit squarely with the village of Gstaad’s motto: “Come up, slow down.”
You can get to Gstaad by train or rental car. A local airport services private aircraft. Commercial flights into Geneva or Zurich are each about two and a half hours away.
For more detailed information, go to palace.ch.