Baur au Lac
The Baur au Lac is a 5-star - luxury hotel near the Bürkliplatzes in Zurich . It was founded in 1844 and is still family-owned today. The Baur au Lac is a member of the Leading Hotels of the World and the Swiss Deluxe Hotels.
For Baur au Lac is one of the Gourmet - Restaurant pavilion. In summer, the gastronomic offer extends to the terrace in the own park.
history
The hotel pioneer Johannes Baur founded the Hotel Baur on Paradeplatz in 1838 , today's Savoy Hotel Baur en Ville . Six years later he opened his second hotel on Lake Zurich , which he called Baur au Lac (Baur am See) to distinguish it from his city hotel.
Johannes Baur, originally a journeyman baker from Vorarlberg , Austria , immigrated to Zurich in the 1820s. First he ran the Zum Kirschbaum inn in Marktgasse , across from the confectioner David Sprüngli .
In the 1830s, the inner city of Zurich underwent enormous structural changes; Jumps, fortifications and defense towers were demolished. After the completion of the Münsterbrücke, work began on building a wide street from the Münsterhof to the Neumarkt, today's Paradeplatz. Johannes Baur chose this new city center for the construction of the first comfortable hotel in Zurich. Until then, travelers had to make do with rather simple inns. The dining elevator leading up to the roof was considered a sensation of the new hotel.
The success of his first house spurred Johannes Baur to open his second house, the Baur au Lac. His decision not to face the city like the other buildings, but to face the lake, was considered brave. Initially more of a guesthouse, the Baur au Lac was the first address, especially for aristocrats traveling incognito. With the advent of tourism, the Baur au Lac was expanded to its present size in order to do justice to the increasing travel activity.
In 1852 Johannes Baur handed over the management of the hotel to his 25-year-old son Theodor , who attached even more importance to service to the guest and initiated the establishment of the École hôtelière de Lausanne .
Ludwig I of Bavaria and the Austrian Empress Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary were among the most famous guests at Baur au Lac from these early years . They were followed by King Faruq of Egypt, Carl XVI , among many others . Gustaf , King of Sweden, as well as the Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia or the German Emperor Wilhelm II. One of the hotel stories is that Bertha von Suttner persuaded the entrepreneur Alfred Nobel to donate the Nobel Peace Prize , Richard Wagner the premiere of the first act the Valkyrie celebrated and Walt Disney immortalized his visit in a Donald Duck comic . However, photos of the guests are not published because this contravenes the principle of discretion .
In 1889 the name changed from Baur to Kracht: Theodor Baur's daughter Emmy had married Carl Kracht from the family of the owners of the Excelsior Hotel Ernst in Cologne. Thomas Mann and his wife Katia spent their honeymoon at the Baur au Lac in 1905. Ferdinand Sauerbruch and his wife Ada lived there in the autumn of 1910 when Sauerbruch in Zurich was discussing his upcoming appointment to the university clinic there with his medical colleagues and government councilor Ernst; and when they had visitors there was often a visit to the “grill room” at Baur au Lac. Carl was followed by his son Hermann, who became known as a hotelier and car racing driver.
After long-term hotel director Ernst Schwerer's farewell, Georges Rey, a great-nephew of hotel legend César Ritz , who had previously worked at the Hôtel des Bergues in Geneva, the Hermitage in Monte Carlo and the Palace in Lucerne, was able to be won over. Georges Rey stayed with the Baur au Lac for over 31 years before handing it on to his son Michel in 1983.
On the part of the owner family, Charles Kracht had taken over the fate of the hotel from his father Hermann. Together with his sister Heidi Roulet-Kracht (1921–1997), he ran the family businesses in Zurich and Cologne.
Charles Kracht died in 1990. Since then, son Andrea has run the hotel in collaboration with the former director Michel Rey and the current director Wilhelm Luxem. Under the leadership of Andrea Kracht, the Baur au Lac was completely renovated in two phases.
The hotel was last completely renovated between 2008 and 2014. Andrea Kracht has been chairman of the industry association The Leading Hotels of the World since 2010 .
Economy
The Baur au Lac offers 119 rooms, including 27 junior suites and 18 suites . The large Petit Palais ballroom and five different sized salons are available for events . On the top floor there is a fitness club with a view over Lake Zurich to the mountains.
The Baur au Lac employs 250 people, more than any other luxury house in Zurich. The hotel has its own garage with a petrol station .
In 2015 the house achieved a room occupancy rate of 78% with 60% regular customers. The average price of the rooms was over 900 francs , a junior suite cost from 1200 francs, a river suite 2400 francs, and a deluxe suite 3200 francs.
literature
- Walter Baumann: A guest in old Zurich . Munich 1992. ISBN 3-88034-594-5 .
- Memoirs of a Palace: Baur au Lac / L'Hôtel Baur au Lac. Jean des Cars. Photogr. by Jérôme de Cunha. Translated from the French. by Angelika Gross. [Ed. Sandrine Balihaut Martin]. 2002.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Baur au Lac . At swissdeluxehotels.com
- ↑ a b c Johannes Ritter: Luxury Hotel in the Shadow of the Fifa Scandal , in: FAZ , June 27, 2015, p. 27
- ^ Ferdinand Sauerbruch, Hans Rudolf Berndorff : That was my life. Kindler & Schiermeyer, Bad Wörishofen 1951; cited: Licensed edition for Bertelsmann Lesering, Gütersloh 1956, pp. 124–126 and 159.
- ↑ Hans R. Amrein, Andrea Kracht: With charm and style to success ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ). On hotelier.ch ( PDF , 971 kB)
- ↑ Management team , on de.lhw.com
- ↑ bauraulac.ch: Suites & Rooms
- ↑ Our philosophy: EXPRESSION OF A LIFESTYLE (as of 01/2017)
Coordinates: 47 ° 22 '0.8 " N , 8 ° 32' 22.2" E ; CH1903: six hundred eighty-three thousand one hundred and fifty-four / 246812