Swiss village Gstaad attracts celebs to the Alps
By Cheryl Blackerby
The Palm Beach Daily News (Dec. 26, 2015)
GSTAAD, Switzerland — Conroy and Lars Widmer slowly made their way through the lunch crowd in the restaurant of the 170-year-old Posthotel Rossli. Well-dressed millionaires called out hellos, and farmers wearing flannel shirts clapped the brothers on the back as they passed.
Gstaad is a real village, not a resort dressed up as a village, and in the restaurant you can feel it. The brothers, who grew up here, are fourth-generation owners of the Posthotel Rossli, Gstaad’s oldest hotel.
The sturdy four-story building made of local fir opened as an inn and post office, with stables in back for the mail carriers’ horses, in 1845.
The brothers, along with their father, Ruedi, are also well-known ski jumpers in this region of the Swiss Alps. And it doesn’t hurt that the brothers are outgoing with charm to spare, easily switching from English to French to German as they chat with friends and visitors.
The Posthotel was historically the first place in town to hear news, which traveled slowly to these mountaintops, and it still seems to be the best place to learn what’s happening in town.
The 170-year-old Posthotel Rossli is Gstaad’s oldest hotel. Photo by Cheryl Blackerby
At the very least, the hotel makes a cozy base for exploring one of Europe’s most famed ski villages.
Gstaad first made international headlines when Elizabeth Taylor bought Chalet Ariel in 1962 and lived in the village with fourth husband Eddie Fisher and then fifth (and sixth) husband Richard Burton. She hosted many family gatherings here, especially at Christmas.
Her daughter, Liza Todd-Tivey, commissioned a bronze statue and fountain called Rosie — a calf sipping at a stone trough that stands on the pedestrian street in the center of town — in honor of her mother.
Soon, other celebrities followed. Julie Andrews and her husband director Blake Edwards bought a chalet here. Edwards shot two films in Gstaad: “The Return of the Pink Panther,” starring Peter Sellers in 1975 and “The Tamarind Seed,” starring Andrews and Omar Sharif in 1974.
Andrews still lives here (Edwards died in 2010). She is beloved for buying Christmas lights to decorate the entire village. She said she thought Gstaad was too dark in winter. She also donated a fountain and a duck statue, called Sitting Duck, created from a drawing by Edwards, which sits next to the pedestrian main street not far from Rosie. I passed a yellow Labrador retriever, who wore a fashionable red puffy coat, as he looked longingly at the fountain. His owner released the leash, and the happy dog waded in.
“Gstaad is the last paradise in a crazy world,” Andrews said, when presenting the statue to the city.
Burton felt the same way: “Gstaad is the most beautiful place in the world. We ( Taylor and I) feel at home here; we work, read and play here. No matter where we have to live and work, we only feel at home in Gstaad,” he told Schweizer Illustrierte magazine in 1972.
A local guide told me celebrities often come to hide in this village that is famously unimpressed with famous people. She may or may not have been talking about director Roman Polanski, who has made Gstaad his primary home. He is often seen walking in town and sitting on the balcony of his chalet, Milky Way.
Actor Roger Moore once joked, “The locals are more interested in my car than they are in me.”
Prince Charles skies here, as well as Prince Albert of Monaco and former King of Spain, Juan Carlos, who made headlines when he fell while skiing and broke his pelvis.
Unlike St. Moritz, a glitzy Swiss ski town that relishes its famous residents and visitors, Gstaad remains rooted in its agricultural surroundings — there are 3,500 people in Gstaad and 7,000 cows in the pastures surrounding it. The cows have the run of the pedestrian street twice a year when they are moved to higher and lower ground.
The latest European pop music is the soundtrack of St. Moritz, but in Gstaad it’s country music. The annual Country Music Night is hugely popular. This year’s headliners were Chris Young and the Gatlin Brothers.
And Harleys (not Bentleys) are the stars at the luxurious Le Grand Bellevue, which reopened in 2013 after an extensive refurbishment that included a Michelin-starred restaurant. The hotel will host an unlikely event next year — a Harley Davidson motorcycle rally on twisting Alpine roads. Locals are thrilled.
Unlike St. Moritz, Gstaad is not known for its expert ski slopes and Olympic-level skiing. But it is known for Alpine ballooning, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing and winter hiking. And, also unlike St. Moritz, more people come to Gstaad to hike mountain trails year round than to ski.
The nightclubs in St. Moritz stay open to the wee hours; Gstaad packs it in pretty early. Frequent Gstaad visitor British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery always ended his legendary dinner parties at 10 p.m. with the announcement: “Gentlemen, the night was made for sleeping!”
But, make no mistake, the glitz is still here, and most visibly at the Gstaad Palace, which opened in 1913 with electrical lighting and six telephone booths. In the last 15 years, an estimated $90 million has been spent on improvements to the hotel, which include a lavish spa and five restaurants. The Palace makes a perfect photo op in its position on a mountainside overlooking the village.
The five-star Gstaad Palace sits high on a hill overlooking the town. Photo by Cheryl Blackerby
Meanwhile, the comfortable and atmospheric Posthotel Rossli is packed for lunch and dinner. Local farmers wearing sheepskin coats and tall rubber wellies sit at wood tables alongside wealthy chalet owners and the occasional celebrity in designer clothes.
The hotel is much the same as it was 100 years ago except for modern amenities, says Conroy Widmer’s wife Nadja, who helps manage the hotel and restaurant.
“People will come back after 30 years and tell us it still looks the same,” she says. “And they will sit at the same table.”
The chef has been at the restaurant for 25 years and still cooks dishes with vegetables that are in season. The eggs come from the nearby Happy Chickens farm, and the cheeses and beef are local. During my stay, it was hunting season, and venison was on the menu.
This was my first visit to Gstaad, and I wouldn’t mind at all going back in five or 10 years and finding it exactly the same.
Details:
Hotels — The 104-room Gstaad Palace, a member of Leading Hotels of the World, has a spa, indoor and outdoor pools, and a fitness center. Winter rates range from about $494 for a single room to $16,000 per night for the three-bedroom penthouse suite including half-board (breakfast and a choice of lunch or dinner), all taxes and service. www.palace.ch
Posthotel Rossli — Ask about packages that include room and snowshoe hiking, skiing, snowboarding, and ski jumping. Rates include a buffet breakfast. Winter rates range from about $260 for a double room to $400 (depending on dates) for a family room that can accommodate five people. Rates drop considerably in the three other seasons. I stayed here in October, and my room was $120. www.posthotelroessli.ch.