Grandhotel Giessbach

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The hotel in October 2011
The grand hotel around 1895
The hotel seen from the other side of the lake

The Grandhotel Giessbach near the Giessbach Falls on the south-eastern shore of Lake Brienz in the Bernese Oberland is a grand hotel from 1875.

location

The hotel is located approx. 100 meters above Lake Brienz in the area of ​​the municipality of Brienz and can be reached from there via the road that leads to the Axalp . In addition, the hotel is connected to the "Giessbach See" boat station of BLS Schifffahrt Berner Oberland via the Giessbachbahn , which opened in 1879 .

history

The Brienz pastor Daniel Wyss and the Brienz school director Johannes Kehrli made it easier for guests to visit the famous Giessbach waterfalls in the course of the emerging tourism. They built a path to the lake, set up a bench, opened up access to the upper waterfalls and built the path along the Giessbach to Schweibenalp. In 1832 the first inn was built.

In 1855 Conrad von Rappard became the new owner of Giessbach. He hired Eduard Schmidlin as administrator from 1856 to 1870 . During this time he laid out the park: the garden in front of the hotel, the walking paths to the panoramic summit, as well as many dry stone walls and a 63-step stone staircase were built. Eduard Schmidlin became the first director of a pension house (Kurhaus) with 175 beds built in 1858, which was owned by Johannes Knechtenhofer and which today serves as the hotel's staff house.

In 1870 the Giessbach domain came into the possession of the French hotelier family Hauser for CHF 900,000. Karl Hauser commissioned the most famous hotel builder of the time, Horace Edouard Davinet , to plan a five-story palace hotel. After two years of construction, the hotel opened in 1875. In 1883 a large fire destroyed the upper floors, but they were immediately rebuilt. Before the First World War , the hotel changed hands several times. The Second World War was also a difficult time for the hotel, as it had been a travel destination for industrialists and princes from Russia, India, Africa and Europe before the wars.

The owner of the hotels on the Bürgenstock , Fritz Frey-Fürst, acquired the property in 1947 for CHF 190,000 and reopened the hotel in 1949 after a total renovation. In 1950 the government council of the canton of Bern placed the entire Giessbach domain under nature protection.

In 1979 the hotel closed its doors after years of decline. The entire original complex was to be torn down and replaced by a modern concrete building in the style of a “jumbo chalet”. In 1983 the Swiss environmentalist Franz Weber managed to save the hotel with the help of his Helvetia Nostra association and the Giessbach Foundation, which he founded . The property and the 22 hectare property were bought from the previous owner Frey for the amount of 3 million francs. The building was placed under monument protection and is now classified as a cultural asset of national importance (A object). The canton of Bern and the municipality of Brienz each contributed CHF 0.5 million to the purchase price; the remaining CHF 2 million was raised through a nationwide campaign. By founding the Parkhotel Giessbach AG stock corporation , additional funds could be obtained, so that by 1988 the sum of 10 million francs in the form of shares for the purpose of a total renovation in several stages could be raised.

As the first construction phase, the kitchen and the restaurant were renewed and so the restaurant was reopened in 1984. In the following years, the hotel was renovated in stages during the winter: 1st floor (1985), 2nd floor (1986), 3rd floor (1987), east hall, "Davinet salon", foyer, staircase (1988). In 1990 the financing of the last major construction phase was secured with a final capital increase of two million francs.

Illustrations

  • foyer

  • foyer

  • reception

  • Image from the 1870s

  • Staff house (former spa house) with organic swimming pool

Awards

  • 2004: ICOMOS : Historic Hotel of the Year
  • 2004: First award in the Gault-Millau travel guide for gourmets

Trivia

The hotel served as the backdrop for the 1989 film “ Supertrick (Quicker Than the Eye)” with Wolfram Berger and for several scenes in the 10th and final episode Points (end of the war) of the US TV series “ Band of Brothers ”. Several scenes from the British film adaptation of the novel Smiley's People by John le Carré were also shot at the Grand Hotel. In 1994, an episode from the French TV series Nestor Burma was filmed in the Grand Hotel: Nestor Burma dans l'île , with Guy Marchand in the title role.

literature

  • Jürg Schweizer, Roger Rieker: Grandhotel Giessbach. (Swiss Art Guide, Volume 751, Series 76). Ed. Society for Swiss Art History GSK. Bern 2004, ISBN 3-85782-751-3 .
  • Schweizer Heimatschutz (Ed.): The most beautiful hotels in Switzerland. 2nd revised edition, 2008, ISBN 978-3-033-01454-1 , p. 37. Online (PDF; 1.9 MB)

See also

Web links

Commons : Grandhotel Giessbach  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Small tour of Giessbach , information page from March 6, 2010 on dampfromantik-nostalgie.ch
  2. ↑ Grandhotel Giessbach - a journey into the past ... (PDF; 148 kB) , 7-page history of the hotel, accessed on May 8, 2013

Coordinates: 46 ° 44 '7.4 "  N , 8 ° 1' 23.7"  E ; CH1903:  644683  /  176187