Maloja Palace

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Hotel Maloja Palace

The Maloja Palace (also Maloja Palace Hotel , formerly Hôtel Kursaal de la Maloja ) is a luxury hotel in the mountain village of Maloja in Switzerland . It was once one of the largest and most modern hotels in the world.

The building was built between 1882 and 1884 on a bay on Lake Sils by the Belgian architect Jules Rau in neo-renaissance style and opened on July 1, 1884. The five-story complex had 300 rooms with around 450 beds and 20 dining and ballrooms.

However, the hotel company under the Belgian Count Camille de Renesse had to file for bankruptcy after only five months , also because cholera had broken out in neighboring Italy and the nearby border had been closed as a result. The hotel subsequently remained open under different owners until 1934. In the decades that followed, the huge hotel complex was primarily used by the Swiss Army , which held refresher courses here .

In 1962, the owner company, Ferienhotel Maloja AG , whose majority of the shares were held by the Belgian Christian Health Insurance Fund , rented the hotel complex to the operating company Intersoc . As a result, the hotel served as a camp, colony and holiday home for various, primarily Belgian, youth groups. Since the 1980s, when the house was fully occupied, the occupancy has been falling steadily, which may a. was due to the decreasing attractiveness of accommodation with mass camps and military shift operation as well as the cancellation of the night train between Brussels and Chur by the NMBS / SNCB , which significantly increased the travel time. In addition, the Christian health insurance fund, like other Belgian health insurance funds, was in financial straits and would continue to be burdened by the necessary high restructuring costs.

The sale of the Maloja Palace for 15 million francs at the insistence of the main shareholder was confirmed in January 2006 by the “Ferienhotel Maloja AG”. The buyer was a Swiss company, led by the Italian millionaire Amedeo Clavarino, who had already bought up various hotels in Valais . Originally he wanted to create holiday apartments in the building, but this was not approved. In July 2009 the Maloja Palace was reopened as a hotel with 50 suites and 35 double rooms after extensive renovation and restoration worth millions .

photos

  • Postcard around 1890

  • The hotel around 1900

  • Photochrom postcard around 1900

literature

  • Roland Flückiger-Seiler: Hotel palaces between dream and reality . Swiss tourism and hotel construction between 1830 and 1920. 2nd edition. Hier + Jetzt, Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-906419-68-1 , Das Luftschloss in Maloja, p. 209-217 .
  • Peter Böckli : Until the Countess's Death - The drama about Count Renesse's hotel palace in Maloja . 8th edition. Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Zurich 2007, ISBN 3-03823-342-0 .

Web links

Commons : Maloja Palace  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ The sources contradict each other: the official website of the Maloja Palace Hotel mentions 250 rooms.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Roland Flückiger-Seiler: Hotel palaces between dream and reality . Swiss tourism and hotel construction between 1830 and 1920. 2nd edition. Hier + Jetzt, Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-906419-68-1 , p. 209-217 .
  2. ↑ A breath of fresh air from Milan. Retrieved October 4, 2009 .
  3. ↑ Will the Maloja Palace be a luxury hotel again? (PDF; 52 kB) Engadiner Post, January 31, 2006, accessed on October 1, 2009 .
  4. ↑ The Maloja Palace just doesn't shine. Tages-Anzeiger, July 29, 2009, accessed September 30, 2009 .
  5. ↑ Bernadette Conrad: A castle for me alone , ZEIT Online , March 1, 2012

Coordinates: 46 ° 24 ′ 22 "  N , 9 ° 42 ′ 1"  E ; CH1903:  773893  /  141923