Johannes Badrutt
Johannes Badrutt (born April 2, 1819 in Samedan ; † November 1, 1889 in St. Moritz ) was a Swiss hotelier in the Upper Engadin ( Canton of Graubünden ).
origin
Johannes Badrutt's father was Johannes Badrutt from Pagig in Schanfigg . Johannes senior moved to Chur at an early age, looking for work. There he married Anna Maria Donatsch from Malans in 1812. In 1814 he received the offer to work as a turner and painter in Samedan. After moving to the Engadin alone for the time being, Anna Maria followed suit with her first son Christian in 1816. After the birth of the daughters Ursula and Anna Maria, Johannes was born in 1819. Johannes senior worked as a builder and also ran a shop for building materials, the “Werk- & Handelshaus für Bauwesen”. He converted the house into the “A la Vue du Bernina” hotel and ran it with his family. The striking round gable house is still standing today.
Life
In contrast to his brothers, Johannes Badrutt did not complete any studies or formal training. He attended various schools, spent the winter of 1833–34 in Chiavenna and, at a young age, worked for a few months in a hardware store in Chur . In 1836 he joined his father's company. In 1843 he married Maria Berry (1822–1877). The couple had eleven children, eight of whom survived. Maria was the daughter of the Chur city council and master baker Johannes Berry and the sister of Peter Robert Berry , who later became the spa doctor in St.Moritz.
In 1858 Badrutt sold his parents' hotel to Landammann Andreas Rudolf von Planta and bought the twelve-bed “Faller” boarding house in St. Moritz, which he had rented two years ago, for CHF 28,500. Under the name “Hotel-Pension Engadiner Kulm” ( Kulm Hotel St. Moritz ), Johannes and Maria expanded the modest guesthouse into one of the leading luxury hotels in Switzerland. Through targeted land acquisition, Badrutt created the basis for the later hotel empire of his family.
From the 1860s, Badrutt opened its hotel in the winter season as well. There is a legend about this, but it cannot be proven: In the autumn of 1864 Badrutt made a bet with six of his English summer guests. He invited them to be his guests in winter and promised them that even in winter when the sun was shining they would be able to sit on his terrace with their shirtsleeves. If he was wrong, he would also pay for the travel expenses from London to St. Moritz. The English went home tanned in the spring and told "half of England" about their vacation in St. Moritz; winter tourism was launched.
In fact, the Hotel Kulm's "tourist list" shows that the first Englishman to spend the winter in St. Moritz was a certain Arthur Edward Vansittart Strettell. His father had been a regular summer visitor to St. Moritz since 1860. Son Arthur Edward suffered from tuberculosis. Hoping that the Engadine mountain air would help him, he spent a whole year in St. Moritz from July 1866 to June 1867. It was probably the Strettells who then spread the idea of winter tourism to their circle of friends and acquaintances.
The mostly English winter guests introduced previously unknown winter sports such as curling , bobsleigh and skeleton to Switzerland . To enable his guests to practice their sport, Badrutt built a curling track; on December 22, 1880, curling was played for the first time on the continent in front of his hotel. In 1884 he had a skeleton track built between St. Moritz and Celerina ; the Cresta Run . For the women he organized sleigh rides on the frozen Lake St. Moritz .
Badrutt, fascinated by technical innovations, bought a lighting system at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1878 . He had a small power station built near his hotel and on July 18, 1879, the first electric arc lamps in Switzerland burned in the dining room of the Kulm Hotel in St. Moritz. As further technical innovations, he introduced telephones, water closets, hydraulic lifts and warm air heating in his hotel.
In the last years of his life Badrutt suffered from the disagreement of his sons; he spent his last years withdrawn, becoming dark and silent. When Johannes Badrutt died, he was the second largest landowner in the village. In addition to the Engadine Kulm, his family owned five houses with outbuildings and lots of land. The Hotel Kulm was continued by his son Peter Robert Badrutt, accompanied by the envy and resentment of his brothers.
The Hotel Badrutt's Palace in St. Moritz was built in 1892 by his son Caspar Badrutt (1848–1904).
literature
- Herbert Meider: Swiss pioneers in the hotel industry . Swiss Traffic Center, Paudex 1976
- Susanna Ruf: Five generations of Badrutt. Hotel pioneers and founders of the winter season . Association for economic history studies, Zurich 2010, ISBN 978-3-909059-49-2 ( Swiss pioneers in business and technology. Vol. 91).
Web links
- Silvio Margadant: Badrutt, Johannes. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
- Badrutt at the Kulmhotel St. Moritz
Individual evidence
- ↑ Susanna Ruf: Five generations of Badrutt: Hotel pioneers and founders of the winter season . In: Association for economic history studies (Hrsg.): Pioneers: Swiss pioneers of economy and technology . Zurich 2010, ISBN 978-3-909059-49-2 .
- ↑ Bernina Vegl
- ↑ a b Diane Conrad: Johannes Badrutt: "I used the clever moment - I dared and I succeeded." Ed .: self-published. 2nd Edition. 2010, p. 66 .
- ↑ History of the Kulmhotel ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 1.1 MB)
- ^ Herbert Meider: Swiss pioneers in the hotel industry . Swiss Traffic Center, Paudex 1976; P. 84
- ^ David Gugerli: Streams of Speech. On the electrification of Switzerland 1880–1914. Chronos Verlag, Zurich 1996, ISBN 3-905311-91-7 , pages 25, 27 ( online )
- ↑ St. Moritz Energie: History & Pioneering Spirit
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Badrutt, Johannes |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Grisons hotelier |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 2, 1819 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Samedan |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 1, 1889 |
| Place of death | St. Moritz |