After over 150 years of elegantly cruising at the top, St. Moritz – the world’s original ski resort – is finally starting to move with the times. The unchanging, olde-world nirvana of grand epicurea and vertiginous pleasure, where fur coats dominated local mufti and guests were expected to dress in black tie for dinner (in hotels that have been around since the Victorian era) suddenly feels young again.
Yes, the heavenly Engadin destination once boasted Switzerland’s first electric lights (1878) and some of the Alps’ maverick electrically powered ski lifts (1935). It’s also been long-accustomed to hosting kings, writers, aristocrats, stars and tsars as its guests – Kaiser Wilhelm II, the Shah of Iran, Tsar Nicholas II, Friedrich Nietzsche, Alfred Hitchcock, Charlie Chaplin, Roger Moore and Brigitte Bardot were all very happy to keep St. Moritz snooty. Now it’s getting kinda hip, too. Stuffiness and dress codes are out – art galleries, coffee shops, techno music, popup dining and experimental cocktails are in. There’s even a new hotel – incredibly, St. Moritz’s first opening in 50 years.
Built in 1906 by Swiss architect Nicolaus Hartmann (whose work is still present all across the Grisons canton, from Davos and Klosters and Arosa to Flims and Pontresina), the original La Margna hotel was intended as a companion construction to Hartmann’s Gare de St. Moritz, and the starting point of the Rhaetian Railway, a short walk away. The building has a prime position on Via Serlas, the main drag that winds upwards in a snow-dusted Rodeo Drive of luxury consumerism – Miu Miu, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Moncler, Armani, Fendi, Dior et al, a Hauser & Wirth gallery, and at least 15 shops where you can still buy fur. Yet it went unoccupied for a decade until it was saved from dereliction by the Grace Hotels group, and reopened last winter.
Now reborn as Grace La Margna St. Moritz, Hartmann’s five-star hostelry is re-established as one of the town’s finest and most happening locations – no gothic regulations or rigorous dress codes here. The Art Nouveau architecture, vaulted ceilings and Engadin craftsmanship aesthetic remains, but the interiors, by Divercity Architects in collaboration with designer Carole Topin, are transformed. Contemporary artworks by Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst sit aside furniture by Molteni&C and Pierre Frey carpeting, set off by creamy marble, monolith granite and Moleanos limestone in the new wing extension. Because of its lakeside position, the views across Lake St. Moritz and the namesake Piz da la Margna in the distance are uninterrupted and spectacular from every window (although the panoramic vista from the Sainte Claire-designed spa’s hot tub just squeaks top billing). Grace La Margna St. Moritz is open 365 days a year, bucking the tradition of many local hotels that close for the spring.
“Wealthy people begin to crave experience over consumerism – and St. Moritz is certainly a highly elevated experience”
The hotel’s party piece is the N/5 cocktail lounge, with its seven-metre-long Carrara marble bar and a stage for live performances. Mixologist confections are served from a menu masquerading as a pack of tarot cards; choose from “The Hanged Man” and “The Devil”. The View restaurant, for breakfast and lunch, expands on the hotel’s circular themes. There’s also a Beefbar outlet, offering its luxury take on street food.
Après-ski diners can go from the Piz Corvatsch slopes straight to Stüvetta Moritz – a cosy, elevated street-food cabin that does a mean rösti, a selection of fondues to share, and deer carpaccio with a truffle dressing. At The Living Room, the house pour is neither German nor Swiss wine but – Gott im Himmel! – posh English fizz from Sussex-based vineyard Gusbourne. Increasingly, it is new, young money doing the slurping, shopping, skiing and schmoozing; young, racially diverse, tech-bro types in their 30s are coming to St. Moritz, a mountain with 350 km of pistes that, for years, was proud to have the highest percentage of non-skiing visitors and pedestrian-accessible lifts anywhere in the Alps.
These days, keener skiers, cooler music, better clothes, a younger clientele and new thinking are in evidence all over town. Paul Dutschmann, senior PR manager at St. Moritz Tourismus until recently, had been keen to attract the next generation of free-spending, trend-centric, gender-fluid St. Moritzers with techno music festivals and a gourmet food week in the summer. Techno superstars Camelphat and Lilly Palmer headline St. Moritz’s bi-annual Sunice festival in April.
St. Moritz also put a ban on wasteful and environment-damaging New Year’s Eve fireworks, and replaced the pyrotechnics with a state-of-the-art drone display. Back at the N/5 bar, Malcolm Borwick, St. Moritz snow polo player and ambassador for Royal Salute (aka the N/5 house scotch), is on a banquette entertaining a United Nations of high-net-worth types, flown over to the hotel as the marque’s special guests after each having spent upwards of €25K on a single bottle of single malt at some point during the year. “I’ve been coming to St. Moritz for seven or eight years now,” says Borwick. “And every year my impression is that the money’s getting younger, the town more dynamic and modern.”
The average age in the N/5 bar, he reckons, “is probably 35‑40… As opposed to 50-65 in St. Moritz’s other, stiffer hotels”. Borwick reckons that the famous St. Moritz snow polo (its white playing field is visible from the bar) is now one of those must-attend, bucket-list events. “Wealthy people often have enough watches and houses – they begin to crave experience over consumerism,” he says. “And St. Moritz is certainly a highly elevated experience.”