The Alpina Gstaad

In the Bernese Oberland resort of Gstaad at an altitude of 1,050 metres, The Alpina Gstaad is the most architecturally ambitious luxury hotel in the valley — a 2012 building designed by Jochen Rädler in a contemporary interpretation of the Bernese chalet tradition, using the characteristic dark-stained timber, local stone, and pitched roof proportions of the regional vernacular at a scale and with a material quality that gives the building a presence on the Gstaad skyline appropriate to its position as the valley’s dominant five-star property. The 56 rooms and suites are among the most technically comprehensive in Swiss mountain luxury, and the Six Senses Spa’s programme — one of the brand’s most complete facilities outside its resort properties in Asia — gives the hotel a wellness infrastructure unusual in a ski-town setting. The Gstaad ski area’s connection to the Palace Hotel’s slopes and the broader Saanenmöser terrain provide the primary winter sports activity.

The six restaurants and bars — spanning Japanese fine dining, Italian trattoria, a cheese and fondue restaurant in the cellar, and the lobby bar whose social life constitutes one of Gstaad’s most important winter gathering points — provide a culinary diversity that positions the Alpina as a dining destination for the resort’s high net worth permanent and seasonal community as much as for its hotel guests. The Six Senses Spa’s Ayurvedic, Chinese medicine, and contemporary integrative wellness programmes make it the most complete wellness offering in the Bernese Oberland. The summer season’s hiking network, the Menuhin Festival’s classical music programme, and the August polo tournament give Gstaad a cultural calendar whose quality extends significantly beyond the winter ski season.

The Alpina Gstaad’s relationship with the Bernese Oberland landscape includes participation in the regional tourism board’s sustainability commitments and the hotel’s operational programme for energy efficiency appropriate to a building of this scale in an alpine environment where the quality of snow, water, and mountain air is the fundamental resource on which all economic activity in the valley depends.