By JOHN BORDSEN
The Charlotte ObserverOctober 27, 2014
Yves Gardiol is general manager of Badrutt's Palace Hotel (www.badruttspalace.com), the famous resort in St. Moritz, Switzerland. Gardiol, a 53-year-old native of Lausanne, Switzerland, has been at the Palace for a decade.
Question: How about a little background about the hotel?
Answer: St. Moritz is in the Swiss Alps, and this year marks 150 years of winter sports here; St. Moritz has hosted the Olympics twice: 1928 and 1948. The hotel was built in 1896 as a winter destination, and the Palace itself has always been the place to be for celebrities and rich people of the world.
Q. Alfred Hitchcock was a regular guest, and his 1934 suspense movie, "The Man Who Knew Too Much," opens on the slopes there. Does the hotel look the same?
A. It looks today like it was in the film's beginning - just improved with an outside facelift of balconies and windows. Main hall improvements involve electricity. But if you looked at pictures then and now, you'd see very few differences. We now have 157 rooms and suites.
Q. What is the big skiing mountain there?
A. It's called Corviglia and is behind Badrutt's Palace Hotel - a five-minute walk, or two minutes by car shuttle to the cable car. It takes about 20 minutes to go up to the summit by cable car. The summit is about 3,057 meters (10,029 feet).
Q. Look out your office window right now. What do you see?
A. I see the mountain called Muottas Muragl, which goes up to 2,545 meters (about 8,349 feet); there's a cable car that goes up there. In summer it's nice for walks to see the flowers in the mountain. In winter, you can sledge down - it's not for skiing.
The Palace has two seasons: four months in winter, three months in summer. We close at other times: There are no activities and the restaurants are closed.
There are a lot of events when we're open mid-June to mid-September. At the beginning of September we organized a first-time music festival with Mozart as the theme. Last winter we organized a big concert with Michael Bolton. We had Crazy Horse - the adult cabaret from Paris. The year before, we had theater, with an opera evening.
Q. All this skiing and entertainment - in what is essentially a little town. Where does everyone live?
A. There are 6,000 people who live here. In winter, during peak season, the whole valley rises to 100,000 people. Many stay in the next village, which is 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) from here. That's where I live. I drive to work but it's possible to come by bus or train.
Many houses and apartments are only occupied during the season, and people come for one or two months. They otherwise live in Zurich (Switzerland), Munich (Germany) or Milan (Italy).
Q. I've read there are more than 300 days of sunshine a year. True?
A. They say St. Moritz gets 322 days of sunshine, but maybe that's a little exaggerated. It's true we have a great deal, but this summer was not exactly the case; there was a large amount of rain in Europe. Normally there's a lot of snow early in the winter season, then there's sun.
Q. How much snow? How cold?
A. Last winter we had more than 10 meters (32.8 feet). December and January can get very cold, normally minus-20 to minus-30 Celsius (minus-4 to minus-22 Fahrenheit). We normally have a good snow and that makes for a long winter season. If we don't have enough snow at the beginning of the season, we have enough machines to produce it.
We have Lake St. Moritz in front of the Palace where there are many events on the ice, like polo.
Q. With horses? That sounds crazy.
A. It's unique. We have very good players from England and Argentina. There will be four days of polo. Next year will mark 30 years of doing this.
It sounds totally crazy, but the horses like to play on the snow. For spectators it's very elegant, a nice party. There are ladies in fur coats. It's glamorous.
Q. The Palace has always been popular with the jet set. What's it like dealing with celebs?
A. We're used to welcoming these types of people. We know what they want and try to make their visit as easy and cozy as possible. That's not a problem for us. They come back because we know that they know this.
Q. And people book years in advance?
A. It depends on the period. From Dec. 20 to Jan. 10 and the last three weeks of February and the first of March - that's peak, and we have many returning guests who book for the next year when they leave.
The winter rate for standard room (per day) is between 490 and 1,305 Swiss francs ($515-$1,370); it's up to 19,900 Swiss francs ($20,900) for our Hans Badrutt Suite, which is more than 280 square meters (about 3,014 square feet).
We offer added values in the rate. When staying here, for example, you don't pay for skiing - your pass is included. So is your mini-bar, Wi-Fi, breakfast and access to our wellness facility. If you're bringing children, there's access to our kids' club.
