An investment of €516m has breathed new life into a classic Swiss resort, which now boasts one of the largest spas in Europe and a bold new medical wellness hotel. Jane Kitchen visits to find out more

It is often that the journey is just as important as the destination, and at Switzerland’s grand Bürgenstock Resort, this rings true from the moment you arrive – via a private boat ride across Lake Lucerne, the mountains growing ever closer and their snowy tops appearing through the clouds. A cheery red funicular railway car whisks you up the steep slope and deposits you in the heart of the resort, where a dramatic 10-year renovation and expansion has positioned the location as a destination for luxury – and a journey to wellness.

With a history dating back nearly 150 years, a storied past that includes some of classic Hollywood’s biggest names and an enviably dramatic location perched on the edge of an Alpine cliff, it’s no wonder the Bürgenstock Resort was one of the most anticipated hotel openings of 2017. Now, with the final two pieces of the property opened – the 10,000sq m (107,000sq ft) glass-walled Alpine Spa and The Waldhotel Health & Medical Excellence – the multi-property Bürgenstock Resort is a destination for wellness in all forms, from relaxation and indulgence to burnout recuperation, weight management and post-operative recovery.

Heads of state, from Jimmy Carter to Gandhi, have stayed at the Bürgenstock Resort, and in the 1950s, it served as the playground for Hollywood elite. Sophia Loren lived here for 13 years, Audrey Hepburn for 14 – she married Mel Ferrer at the resort’s tiny chapel – and the glamour of Hollywood’s heydey has left its mark. The reimagined Bürgenstock Resort has seen an investment from Katara Hospitality of 550 million Swiss francs (US$544m, €516m, £438m), and part of the remit in its redevelopment was to capture and preserve the resort’s storied history.

Bürgenstock is made up of four hotels, plus a set of private residences and 12 restaurants. Managing director Bruno Schöpfer describes it as a “hotel village”, with 30 different structures and 12 historic buildings. The renovation included the reimagining of the four-star superior Palace hotel, built in 1903, as well as the rustic Taverne 1879, while the original Grand Hotel has been redesigned into residences. The newly-built five-star superior Bürgenstock Hotel – home to the Alpine Spa – has injected a clean-lined, contemporary feel to the location, while The Waldhotel – designed by Matteo Thun – is a striking, environmentally friendly building, clad in recycled limestone and handmade baskets with living walls designed to grow as the hotel ages.

Focused entirely on wellness, The Waldhotel is designed for multi-day stays tackling specific issues – both mental and physical – and also has its own spa. But it’s the Alpine Spa – with its sweeping views, dramatic cliff-edge position and mammoth footprint – which is the showstopper of the hotel village, blending extensive facilities with the healing power of its natural setting and tranquil views.

A spa with a view
“We believe wellbeing is as much about the mind as the body, so we have created a spiritual mountaintop haven,” says spa director Irena Staudenmaier.

That spirituality is developed in no small part by the breathtaking location of the spa, which is perched on the edge of the Bürgenburg cliff, 450m (1,476ft) above Lake Lucerne. The three-storey 10,000sq m (107,000sq ft) glass-walled Alpine Spa is one of the largest in Europe, and incorporates a listed building – inspired by the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright – as well as an extension that marries it with the Bürgenstock hotel.

Maria Vafiadis of London-based MKV Design – who also designed the 4,500sq m (48,438sq ft) spa at Greece’s Costa Navarino resort and the spa at the the Royal Savoy Hotel & Spa in Lausanne – worked on the interiors for all the hotels with the exception of The Waldhotel. For the Alpine Spa, she used natural, local materials against the floor-to-ceiling glass walls to create an atmosphere of tranquility. “Here, everything is about the view – you don’t want to distract from that,” says Vafiadis.

Indeed it is: from the 35° C (95° F) outdoor infinity hydropool where you can gaze across to Mount Pilatus, and on a clear day see all the way to Germany, to the treatment rooms with windows that look out over the lake, the location takes centre-stage, with views that soothe the soul.

“The spa is on the cliff overlooking the lake, and because you’re so high up, it’s like you’re on a helicopter – you don’t only look up, you look down – it’s as if you’ re flying,” says Vafiadis, who used a combination of stone, timber and fire elements, playing with textures rather than materials.

“We’ve made the design very simple and very clean, because if you start putting too many layers of decoration into the room, then you distract from the view,” she explains. “We’ve created something like a lovely timber box with a stone feature wall, so it’s all about nature, and there’s a cosiness – a cocooning, warm, inviting feeling, always in connection with the view.”

Guests enter the spa either directly from the Bürgenstock Hotel, or from a subterranean entrance three floors below, in the belly of the mountain. The spa journey is designed to take you from a very internal, cocooned space to a continued cosiness in the thermal areas, and finally to an outward-facing resolution in the L-shaped relaxation room, which features those panoramic glass walls.

The spa concept was developed by managing director Schöpfer, who has also worked on the spas at the Mandarin Oriental Bangkok and Singapore, the Hyde Park London, the Kahala Hawaii and the Schweizerhof Bern, among others. The spa’s sizeable footprint, combined with the glass walls and views from above, creates a feeling of tranquility, and guests can wander through 7,000sq m (75,347sq ft) of indoor wellness space, including Kneipp baths, an Arabian rasul made from local Bürgenstock rock, a Turkish steamroom, a relaxation lounge with roaring log fireplaces, and an extensive sauna complex, with both co-ed and women’s-only options. “A spa needs to feel intimate, so the bigger it is, the challenge is to keep the warmth and cosiness that you expect,” says Vafiadis. “What we try to do in the very big spas is to break the areas into smaller groups, so instead of going to a sauna or steam room, you go through a series of them. You create more interesting journeys for the guest, and the spa doesn’t lose its sense of intimacy.”

Highlights of the spa menu include a signature Bürgenstock stone massage that uses stones from the Alps, Vichy shower treatments, body peelings, facials and elasticity body packs. The 60-minute Bürgenstock Alpine Facial uses skincare brand Susanne Kaufmann; Kaufmann herself comes from a nearby Alpine valley, and uses her generations-old knowledge of the healing properties of nature to create her products. Luxury Swiss brand La Prairie and Caribbean brand St Barth are also used in the treatments.

A 3,000sq m (32,292sq ft) outdoor spa includes a landscaped private garden to enjoy the Alpine air, as well as the historically protected kidney-shaped ‘Hollywood Pool’, which was once frequented by the resort’s celebrity guests in the 1950s. “We don’t want to recreate the past, but we want the guest to feel this history,” says Vafiadis. “We want them to sense that where they are meant something before, and that this is taking it to another level, and continuing the story.”

‘The future has a past’
In fact, the resort’s history was key in the entire reimagination of the Bürgenstock. As Schöpfer explains: “We had a slogan: ‘The future has a past’. We looked at the past in order to understand the future, and from that past we developed a future strategy. It’s wonderful to build on such a wonderful history, because history is emotion, and at the end of the day, we count on emotions – people want to know about what makes this place a great place.”

A corridor between the Bürgenstock Hotel and the Palace Hotel is designed as a ‘museum walk’, featuring an exhibition on the resort’s history, with photographs and memorabilia. Vafiadis – who began work on the Bürgenstock project six years ago – took inspiration from these historical documents and early photos, in addition to the spa’s setting. “We always do a lot of research, especially when it’s a refurbishment and there’s a lot of history behind it,” she explained. Three private spa rooms – Sophia, Audrey and Shirley (Maclaine) – are named after the stars that once frequented the resort, and include a lounge, changing room, showers, sauna, steamroom, whirlpool, double treatment room, storage room and fireplace, and can be rented out for groups.

“The spa is new but it’s also old – when you are there, you will feel the old part,” says Vafiadis. “It’s almost like a journey through time. You have to consider all these elements when you design, and we tried to build up on different layers. You cannot ignore the individuality of the properties, and you cannot ignore the totality of the project. At the end, everything works together. We make things click together nicely, like little pieces of a puzzle.”

Scenic convalescing
The final piece of the Bürgenstock puzzle is The Waldhotel, which offers physical and mental wellbeing through a ‘Healthy by Nature’ concept. Designed by Italian architect Matteo Thun, the five-star hotel features a 45,000sq ft (4,181sq m) medical centre and a 13,000sq ft (1,208sq m) spa, designed especially for those who are healing emotionally or physically.
A team of multidisciplinary physicians – with specialties including cardiology, internal medicine, dermatology, orthopaedics, psychosomatics, dentistry, nutrition and gastroenterology – treat and prevent health concerns in collaboration with medical staff from local hospitals.

“The combination of medical centre and rehabilitation clinic integrated in a high-end resort like this – that’s unique in all of Switzerland,” says The Waldhotel’s medical director, Dr Michael Brabetz.

Brabetz is a specialist physician for internal medicine and also heads up the Body & Mind Balance programme, which focuses on mental wellbeing and teaches mindfulness and relaxation techniques in collaboration with psychologists.

All programmes start with the Waldhotel Basic Med, which includes a comprehensive medical history and examination, along with basic diagnostics performed on-site, including biometry and body composition, lung function, metabolism measurement, abdominal ultrasound, heart rate variability, resting and stress ECG, blood and urine tests, lung x-ray, bone density measurement and functional movement screening.

Other programmes include Mobility & Activity, designed both for athletic performance and for preventive ageing; Weight Management & Metabolism, with a focus on exercise, nutrition and sleep; and Beauty & Healthy Aging, which includes dermatology, cosmetics and spa, dental health and aesthetics.

An on-site kitchen lab accommodates up to 12 people, and provides cooking classes in conjunction with the weight management programme, with nutritionists and dieticians teaching guests skills to prepare and cook food. “We can help them manage the programme at home, so there’s lasting impact – not just for the five days that they’re here,” says Brabetz.

One-third of The Waldhotel is designed for rehabilitation patients, with 24-hour nurse and medical support and 18 specialist medical rehabilitation rooms, alongside five rooms for accompanying guests, available for those recovering from surgery. Local hospitals refer patients for post-op rehabilitation, and a separate area of the spa is designed for rehab, with water-based resistance training, a three-chamber cryotherapy circuit, moderately heated saunas, and Kneipp baths.

Healing design
Based on the belief of the healing power of convalescing in scenic surroundings, The Waldhotel makes good use of its quiet forest location and views. Thun has designed the hotel to be gradually enveloped by the surrounding greenery; the limestone that was removed to construct the hotel has been used in the walls, and the facade is made from local wood with external plantings and green roofs. “That means that in 10 to 15 years, probably this huge building – 11 levels and 160 rooms – will disappear in the landscape,” says Thun. “That’s my dream of botanical architecture.” All 160 terrace rooms have views of the Alps and are exposed to the sun – something Thun feels was especially important in designing a place of healing. “Every room should have as much natural light as possible,” he explains. “The sun generates life.”

Dr Brabetz expects Bürgenstock’s forested location high on the cliffside to make The Waldhotel especially popular with those suffering from burnout and depression. “This area – the Swiss Alps, the fresh air – I think the psychosomatic rehab will do very well,” he says. “It’s a good place to replenish your energy.”