The Alpina Gstaad is a luxury 56-room hotel in the Oberbort area of

Gstaad Gstaad ( , ) is a town in the German language, German-speaking section of the Canton of Bern in southwestern Switzerland. It is part of the municipality of Saanen and is known as a major ski resort and a popular destination amongst high society ...

, Switzerland. It is owned by

Jean Claude Mimran Jean Claude Mimran (born 1945) is a French businessman with extensive agricultural interests in Senegal, and banking and industrial investments. He is the president of The Mimran Group. Mimran has two brothers, Robert and Patrick. The Swiss busin ...

and Marcel Bach. It was opened in 2012 and was the first luxury hotel to be built in Gstaad for a century.

Background and development

The hotel was built on the site of the Grand Hotel Alpina, which was demolished on April 11, 1995. Opposition from local residents to the building of a new hotel took thirteen years to overcome, and the hotel was completed and opened in late 2012. It was the first new large hotel built in Gstaad for 100 years. Local planning regulations dictated the style of the hotel, which had to be similar to the local three-storey 'Simmentaler' architectural style. The co-owner and developer Marcel Bach sent Cristal champagne to the residents who had complained about the hotel once it had been completed. Phoebe Eaton, in an article on Gstaad in '' T: The New York Times Style Magazine'', wrote of the hotel that "However good the Alpina and any other newcomers prove at being hotels, they are calculated real-estate plays, more about apartments and chalets for sale elsewhere on the grounds." The hotel cost $336 million to build, an average cost of $5 million per room. The building of the hotel was completed without any debt, having been funded by the construction of three chalets and 11 apartments on the site. It was the first luxury hotel to open in Gstaad for 100 years. A third chalet was converted into apartments.

Amenities

Amenities include the Six Senses spa with an 85-ft-long pool, a Japanese restaurant and a private cinema.

Art collection

The Alpina Gstaad has an extensive private art collection including works by;

Alex Israel Alex Israel (born October 1982) is an American multimedia artist, writer, and designer from Los Angeles. His work includes large, colorful airbrushed paintings of abstract gradients and Los Angeles skies, his self-portraits, painted on shaped fi ...

Alex Katz Alex Katz (born July 24, 1927) is an American figurative artist known for his paintings, sculptures, and printmaking, prints. Since 1951, Katz's work has been the subject of more than 200 solo exhibitions and nearly 500 group exhibitions through ...

, Ann Carrington,

Ashley Bickerton Ashley Bickerton (May 26, 1959 – November 30, 2022) was a Barbadian-born American contemporary artist. A mixed-media artist, Bickerton often combined photographic and painterly elements with industrial and found object assemblages. He is assoc ...

Bosco Sodi Bosco Sodi (born 1970 in Mexico City) is a Mexican contemporary artist who works in painting, sculpture, and architectural projects. He is known for using raw and natural materials such as sawdust, pigments, and clay to create large-scale texture ...

Carol Bove Carol Bove (born 1971) is an American artist based in New York City. She lives and works in Brooklyn. Early life and education Born in 1971 in Geneva, Switzerland to American parents, Bove (pronounced bo-VAY) was raised in Berkeley, California, ...

Dan Colen Daniel Colen (born 1979) is an American artist based in New York. His work consists of painted sculptures appropriating low-cultural ephemera, graffiti-inspired paintings of text executed in paint, and installations. Early life and education Bor ...

, Dan McDermott, Erwan Soyer, Futura,

General Idea General Idea was a collective of three Canadian artists, Felix Partz, Jorge Zontal and AA Bronson, who were active from 1967 to 1994. As pioneers of early conceptual and media-based art, their collaboration became a model for artist-initiated ...

, Henrik Olesen,

Howard Schatz Howard Schatz (born 1940) is an American photographer, who previously had a career as an ophthalmologist. Life and work Ophthalmology Schatz began his professional life in medicine. He completed his medical degree at The University of Illinois Co ...

, Ingrid Dee Magidson, Jana Euler,

John Armleder John Armleder (born 1948) is a Swiss performance artist, painter, sculptor, critic, and curator. His work is based on his involvement with Fluxus in the 1960s and 1970s, when he created performance art pieces, installations, and collective art act ...

Massimo Agostinelli Massimo Agostinelli (born 25 September 1987) is a Switzerland-based Italian Americans, Italian American artist, businessman and activist who uses text, word play and found objects in his works with a particular focus on Art intervention, interven ...

, Matthew Lew,

Michel Comte Michel Alfred Comte (born 19 February 1954) is a Swiss artist, filmmaker, fashion and portrait photographer. His most recent art projectLight, focuses on the impact of environmental decline through his large-scale installations, paintings, sculpt ...

, Nathalie Decoster, Pamela Stretton, Patrick Bremer, Richard Aldrich,

Rirkrit Tiravanija Rirkrit Tiravanija (, Jerry Saltz (May 7, 2007)Conspicuous Consumption''New York Magazine''.) is a Thai contemporary artist residing in New York City, Berlin, and Chiangmai, Thailand. He was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1961. His installatio ...

, Roy Nachum, Santiago Taccetti,

Terence Koh Terence Koh (born 1977 in Beijing, China ) is a Canadian artist who has also worked under the alias "asianpunkboy". The artist's work spans a range of media, including drawing, sculpture, video, performance, and the internet. Originally workin ...

Tracey Emin Dame Tracey Karima Emin (; born 3 July 1963) is an English artist known for autobiographical and confessional artwork. She produces work in a variety of media including drawing, painting, sculpture, film, photography, Neon lighting, neon text ...

and

Bruce High Quality Foundation The Bruce High Quality Foundation is an arts collective in Brooklyn, New York City, the United States, which was "created to foster an alternative to everything." The collective is made up of five to eight rotating and anonymous members, most or a ...

. The Alpina's permanent collections include Sixty-three works by 36 artists including

, Jana Euler,

, Henrik Olesen,

and The

, among many others, line the walls of the public rooms and corridors throughout The Alpina Gstaad. Behind the reception desk – a large asymmetrical slab of polished wood hewn from a single fir tree – is a Bosco Soldi diptych of mixed media on cloth with colors and texture that recall rich fertile soil.

's pink neon "And I Said I Love You" sign is over the DJ area in the Lounge. The Princess by The Bruce High Quality Foundation, a silkscreen, paint on canvas of Infanta Margarita from Velásquez's

Las Meninas ) is a 1656 painting in the Museo del Prado in Madrid, by Diego Velázquez, the leading artist of the Spanish Baroque painting, Spanish Baroque. It has become one of the most widely analyzed works in Western painting for the way its complex a ...

hangs near Restaurant Sommet. Nachson Mimran, the son of

, the hotel's majority shareholder, has been the driving force behind the art collection.

Interior design

The Alpina's furniture is by

B&B Italia B&B Italia SpA is an Italian modern furniture company founded in 1966 by Piero Ambrogio Busnelli, who had previously co-founded C&B Italia (with Cesare Cassina). His descendants own and manage the company. In 2021 Piero Lissoni was named Artis ...

, Lindley and Gervasoni, lighting by Pinto Paris and floor lamps by

Lorenzo Tondelli Lorenzo may refer to: People * Lorenzo (name) Places Peru * San Lorenzo Island (Peru), sometimes referred to as the island of Lorenzo United States * Lorenzo, Illinois * Lorenzo, Texas * San Lorenzo, California, formerly Lorenzo * Lorenzo State ...

. HBA designers have referenced many of the local customs and crafts from hand-painted wooden doors for the ballrooms to intricate embroidery on the armchairs. Quartz, mined from Alpine crevasses, has been transformed into bases for lamps, decanters and beer taps. The region's traditional scissor or

decoupage ''Decoupage'' or ''découpage'' (; ) is the art of decorating an object by gluing colored paper cutouts onto it in combination with special paint effects, gold leaf, and other decorative elements. Commonly, an object like a small box or an i ...

art has been used as a design element. Glass pendant lights resemble classic Swiss cowbells. Rugs and throws are fashioned from Saanenland goat hair and columns are sheathed in saddle leather. Additionally, The Alpina Gstaad also has traditional art. Hanging from the ceiling over the main staircase is a Late Baroque painting (circa 1780) measuring 28 feet by 17 feet. Antique wooden chests and hand-painted cupboards decorate several suites.

Awards

* Tripadvisor: Travellers' Choice Award 2016 * Condé Nast Traveler: Gold List 2016 * Prix Villegiature: Grand Prix – Best Resort in Europe * Gault Millau: Hotel of the Year 2013 * European Design Awards: Hotel of the Year 2013 * Michelin Guide: one star for the Sommet restaurant * Gault Millau: 18/20 points for the Sommet restaurant, 16/20 for MEGU restaurant * Condé Nast Traveller: Best New Hotel in Switzerland * Handelszeitung: Best hotel in the category: Ski-Spas de luxe – Relaxation in an altitude above 1000 meters

References

External links

* {{Coord, 46, 28, 32.6, N, 7, 17, 19.1, E, display=title Buildings and structures in the canton of Bern Hotels established in 2012 Hotel buildings completed in 2012 Hotels in Switzerland 21st-century architecture in Switzerland