The first impression that the Grand Hotel Giessbach made on seven-year-old Vera Weber was “horrible”. How did this happen? The noble house above Lake Brienz, built in 1884, is a pearl of the Belle Époque. From the ship you can see its pencil-point turrets, dormer windows and red wooden balconies, jutting out of the mountain forest that slopes seamlessly down to the lake. To its right, the waterfall falls four hundred meters from the heights through a steep gorge. The look is overwhelming. On that cloudy day in 1982, seen up close, the Grand Hotel Giessbach was a sad “shack”, as Vera Weber remembers. It had sat empty for years, boarded up, worn out, looted, ready for demolition. The sight of him made her shiver.
Two million francs in donations
But Vera’s father, the well-known environmental activist and local protector Franz Weber, and his wife Judith were determined to save the old ruined building: turn it into a grand hotel for everyone. He called the foundation founded by Weber in order to purchase the property “Giessbach for the Swiss people”. He collected two million francs in donations. “It was the first crowdfunding” in Switzerland, his daughter writes in her memoir “The Miracle of Giessbach”. The third million, added by the owner shortly before completion, was contributed by the canton of Bern and the city of Brienz, which years earlier had shown themselves indifferent to projects that included a gigantic motorway viaduct over the hotel or, after the its demolition, a In its place is a functional building in the popular concrete hotel look of the 1950s. Now the institutions had woken up at the last minute. The house has been restored, the ugly clutter has been thrown away and the old splendor has returned. At the inauguration party in June 1984 the guests showed up in Belle Époque costume.
Vera Weber, now forty-nine, a blonde, elegant, down-to-earth lady, president of the foundation and director of the hotel, has told this story several times, but still enjoys the thrills of her counterpart. Yes, it was a miracle to restore this work of art composed of historic architecture, interiors and landscaped park. She guides us through the first floor: marble stairs, stucco ceilings, chandeliers, polished parquet, fabric wallpaper, antique sofas, grand piano. On the walls hang permanent loans from the Kunstmuseum Bern, landscapes, portraits, ladies in black with unlikely lives and daring hairstyles, swinging fans made of peacock feathers; Works by Swiss painters of the 19th century.
What happened next in 1982? There was nothing left in the rooms, so the Webers posted ads asking their future guests to donate well-preserved antiques. “Some arrived in removal vans,” says Vera Weber, and so this luxury hotel, luxurious and uncompromising, where everything works perfectly, where the windows open with old brass levers, where there are no coat hangers because of the rattle pins they have to be dragged out of the cabinet, the light switches are immediately accessible and the shower taps can be used without a degree in plumbing, even small imperfections private: a chipped veneer chip, a missing marble corner on the bedside table. There is no spa or gym, but in the park there is a natural swimming pool in which the naturally cold water of the Giessbach circulates, twelve degrees at the beginning of the season.
A funicular takes guests to the hotel from the boat dock.MauriceBut we are still at dinner with the hotel manager: Meiringer cream cheese with beetroot and watercress, pike perch with tomato coulis, barley and stewed tomatoes. This time the waterfall in front of the windows is framed by an ornate cast iron frame, along with the beaded piano in the bar next door. How is the usage? The hotel is well booked. The funicular, which dates back to 1879 and is the oldest of its kind, costs a lot of money to maintain, purrs, tooth after tooth, and transports guests and day-trippers in open wooden carriages from the pier to the hotel.
Princes and queens
Many stories have been written and are bound on the bedside table as “Les Causeries”. Princes and queens were guests, Hans Christian Andersen collected moss from the stones; the art historian John Ruskin was walking in the park while the lilacs were in bloom. In 1865, Friedrich Engels appeared, one of those “foreign assholes” who were never welcome in Switzerland: political refugees, members of parliament from the Paulskirche, “teachers, writers and communists with goatees.” At least Engels paid the bill of 21.50 francs including candles, wine and cascading night lighting. The gardener who laid out the park around the Grand Hotel was also a strange asshole, Eduard Schmidlin. The staircase he built for the Gippi viewpoint is still accessible. He himself became a hotel manager.
The Swiss remain the most constant guests. “We don’t consciously open new markets,” says Vera Weber. They don’t appreciate guests licking knives and bossing staff around. Even fans of a Korean Netflix series find it more of a curse than a blessing. “Crash landing on you” tells the story of a lazy young South Korean woman who loses her way while paragliding and falls at the feet of a North Korean border guard, and includes both previous lives in different picturesque locations in the Bernese Oberland. In the series, the facade of the hotel represents a music school attended by the splendid young man. Since then, people have started landing on the terrace, unpacking picnic baskets, using the toilets and throwing rubbish into the bushes.
Park ranger Tom Herren is the one who cleans up after them. As he walks through the garden and up to the Giessbach, he nonchalantly picks up bags of chips. The twenty-two hectare natural park and waterfall are open to the public. Most people come just for a photo. But “they are killing us”.
Tom Herren, meanwhile, is hardened. He was a teacher for twenty years before deciding to start something completely different at the age of forty. Today he tries to teach
visitors a little respect for botany, he takes care of the paths and walkways, the ship docks, the protection against falling rocks and the trees that grow and fall as nature intended: centuries-old beech trees among gneiss greys, moss and fern. Since 1950 nothing has been allowed to demolish or build anything in the park. He laughs. In the end Weber decides: “No tree will come off!”
The trail crosses the falls on bridges that pass along the rock and behind the curtain of water. Across the Giessbach you can see the Grand Hotel nestled on its rocky spur, with the lake and snow-capped peaks in the background. It’s not for everyone, but it’s just incredibly beautiful.
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