Suvretta House – the grand hotel with its own lift into the Alps

Two kilometres above St Moritz on the sunlit Chasellas plateau, Suvretta House has looked over the lakes of the Upper Engadine since it was festively inaugurated on 16 December 1912, with snow falling on cue to turn it into a storybook castle for the occasion. Hotelier Anton Sebastian Bon built the château-like pile with Swiss architect Karl Koller on land bought by British MP and diamond trader Charles Sydney Goldman, and more than a century later seven generations of hoteliers, the Candrian-Bon family among them, still guide its evolution. It remains the only hotel in St Moritz with a private lift running straight onto the slopes, a detail that has shaped its identity as much as its turrets and oak-panelled rooms. The MICHELIN Guide awards it two Keys, recognition of a grand hotel that keeps its old rituals, fondue nights, a dress code in the dining room, generations returning to the same suite, while quietly rebuilding its spa from the ground up.

01The house

The story begins not with Bon but with an English shipbuilder, who had the original Villa Suvretta built for his wife by Karl Koller; when she disliked it, he sold it to his friend Charles Sydney Goldman, a British Member of Parliament who had made his fortune trading diamonds. Goldman admired the house, bought up the surrounding land and, meeting Swiss hotelier Anton Bon, agreed to build a hotel on the site. The cornerstone was laid on 22 April 1911, and within a year and a half a monumental building rose on the plateau, earning the hotel its reputation as a winter palace of the Belle Époque.

The hotel closed between 1941 and 1946 during the Second World War before reopening and expanding through successive renovations, which over the decades brought a swimming pool, spa, winter ski room and electronic games room. Ownership has stayed in the same hands throughout: the hotel has been owned by multiple generations of the Bon family, and today it is still guided by the Candrian-Bon family, seven generations on from Anton Bon's original vision.

02Rooms and suites

Suvretta House counts 176 rooms and suites, Alpine chic meeting what the hotel calls British understatement, with many rooms linked by connecting doors for families travelling together. South-facing rooms look onto the Upper Engadine's lakes and mountains, while those on the east, west and north sides face parkland, the slopes of Mount Suvretta and the Corviglia ski domain.

Insider tip

Seasonal hotel, open winter and summer only; reached from the resort centre by hotel shuttle.

At the top of the range, the roughly 130 m² Tower Suite is a light-flooded, south-facing two-room suite with its own sun terrace, while the Suvretta Privacy Suite offers a rustic beamed ceiling, a walk-in wardrobe and a free-standing bathtub looking onto the Suvretta slope. Junior Suites and Deluxe doubles complete a hierarchy of rooms that, following a recent redesign, pairs inherited grandeur with a more restrained palette of Alpine sage or burnished clay tones against timber flooring.

03Where to eat

The Grand Restaurant is the hotel's formal dining room, lined with oak pillars and run by head chef Fabrizio Zanetti, who was born, raised and trained in St Moritz and holds 14 GaultMillau points for his French, market-driven seasonal cooking. True to the hotel's heritage, gentlemen are asked to wear a dinner jacket or a dark lounge suit with a tie for dinner, served from 7.30pm.

For something less formal, the Suvretta Stube serves Swiss classics from the canton of Graubünden in a lighter style, fondue remaining a firm favourite. Up on the mountain, two restaurants belonging to the hotel keep skiers fed: the Trutz, standing at 2,211 metres beside the Randolins lift, is known for barley soup, lentil dishes and polenta with Gorgonzola, finished with Kaiserschmarren or Apfelstrudel, while the Chasellas restaurant draws a lunchtime crowd of skiers and walkers by day and a more ambitious dinner crowd by night. Back in the hotel, The Hall, the traditional heart of the building, is where guests gather over newspapers and the hotel's long-running afternoon tea.

04The bar

Anton's Bar, named after founder Anton Bon, is an Art-Deco room for a pre- or post-dinner drink, with live music drawing guests onto the small dance floor in the evenings. For something quieter, the Club Bar and Club Hall offer an after-dinner cocktail or digestif beside an open fire, in keeping with the clubbish, ski-lodge atmosphere that runs through the hotel's public rooms.

05Spa and wellbeing

The newest chapter at Suvretta House is its spa, rebuilt through a major investment into a roughly 4,670 m² wellness complex spanning three levels, designed by Swiss architecture studio Ritter Schumacher to extend the hotel's identity rather than compete with its Belle Époque interiors. Facilities include a 25-metre indoor pool overlooking the mountains, an outdoor pool and whirlpool, a children's pool, saunas and steam baths, treatment rooms, a yoga studio and a separate women's spa alongside the mixed wellness area.

Outdoors, the contrast is part of the point: stepping from the heated water into the cold Alpine air, with peaks rising beyond the pool's edge, is as much the therapy as any treatment on the menu.

06The neighbourhood

Set two kilometres west of central St Moritz in a private parkland estate, Suvretta House is the only ski-in, ski-out hotel in the resort, with its own lift carrying guests directly onto the Corviglia and Marguns slopes; Douglas Fairbanks is said to have been the first person to use it. A hotel shuttle runs guests into town for those wanting St Moritz's boutiques and nightlife, while on the estate itself there are three tennis courts that double as an ice rink in winter, a six- and nine-hole golf course with its own golf school, and four private curling rinks that make Suvretta House, by its own account, the only hotel in the world with a dedicated Curling Guest Club.

The guest list over the decades has included Thomas Mann, Gianni Agnelli and Eva Perón, and in 1919 the dancer Vaslav Nijinsky is reported to have given his last public performance in the hotel's ballroom.

07Making the most of a stay

Suvretta House operates seasonally, opening from early December to early April and again from late June to early September, so a stay has to be timed around the mountain's two seasons rather than fitted around it. The hotel's Kiddy Club and Teddy Club dining club keep younger guests occupied with games, crafts and their own supervised suppers, which explains why breakfast in the Grand Restaurant tends to involve three or four generations of the same family at one table.

The hotel's own chapel, Regina Pacis, sits just below the building and is used for weddings, with receptions continuing in the parkland gardens or one of the Belle Époque banqueting rooms. Anyone booking a winter stay should remember the dress code after dark in the Grand Restaurant, and ask the concierge to reserve a table at the Trutz mountain restaurant in advance on a clear day, when its terrace at 2,211 metres fills quickly.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.