Inside the world of super luxury chalets: a first look at St Moritz's newest five-star residence
It is a truth universally acknowledged that the fancier the digs, the longer one spends fiddling with the light switches.
Such it was during my visit in early December to the Chesa el Toula chalet in St Moritz, Switzerland, where bedtime was delayed a full three minutes while I toggled between settings on the touch sensitive buttons. Dimming in, dimming out; on at the bedstead but off in the bathroom (and vice versa), before finally I persuaded them to fade to soporific black.
I should, perhaps, have called the butler for help, but that would have been far too embarrassing. Anyone who can afford CHF75,000 (approx ￡60,000) for a week’s chalet hire should surely be able to operate a light switch – even if it does appear to have been designed by NASA scientists. And yes, you did read that correctly: ￡60,000. That’s the base price. The cost of staying in this super luxury chalet goes up to CHF180,000 (￡143,000) in high season, before any catering or travel costs.
Welcome to the world of the super rich. This isn’t how the other half ski so much as the other half a per cent hit the slopes. I am not of their ilk, and here only as a guest of the upmarket Swiss travel agency Leo Trippi. Oliver Corkhill, CEO of its UK operation, was showing a few professional observers (read goggle-eyed hacks) around the company’s ritziest chalet in the Swiss Alps, newly available to rent and exclusive to Leo Trippi.
Fresh from a refit, the six-bedroom Chesa el Toula has everything a spy into the luxury lifestyle might expect, and possibly a little more. Smelling of pine and exquisitely furnished, it is decorated with extremely pricey original art belonging to the owner, which betrays a passion for motor racing as well as winter sports.
Every surface has been lavished with natural materials, and on the heated oak floors sit Persian rugs and original furniture from the likes of Le Corbusier and Andrea Ruggiero.
Baths and sinks are hewn from solid soapstone; there is a cinema room, a marble-topped bar with a glass-fronted wine cellar, a spa, two restaurant-quality kitchens, and a gym. In the garage sits a heritage Land Rover Defender, with upgraded seats that add a level of comfort not readily associated with Land Rovers.
Our Spanish butler (not called Manuel, unfortunately, but Jaime), shuttled us to the slopes and back each day; around a five-minute drive. Nothing appears to be too much trouble. When quizzed on his precise duties, it seems anything might fall under his remit, so long as it is legal (and moral). This mostly extends to carrying equipment and ferrying us about, although he did also make me a delicious sandwich.
What’s surprising to me in these times of austerity is not that such levels of luxury exist, but there is so much available.
There are similar properties all over the Alps – and not just in the oligarch’s paradise of Courchevel in France, where the seven-room Chalet Edelweiss is available with Leo Trippi from €120,000 per week. In Lech, Austria, the Chalet N promises all the amenities of a six-star hotel, including an astonishing wellness area and a panoramic terrace. Prices start at a trifling €210,000 per week.
Adding staff can bump up the price considerably. Employing chefs to work around the clock is not unheard of: that’s three eight-hour shifts in rotation, just in case anyone needs a soufflé at 4am.
Over a five-course tasting menu at Chesa La Toula, cooked by the two-star Michelin chef, Eddie Hitzberger, available for guests to book if required, Corkhill shares some of his clients’ more outlandish requests. One involves a piano being delivered by helicopter from Paris to the French resort of Megève – for a six year-old. And then there was the family who chose to commute – by helicopter again – from Megève to Zermatt, as the snow conditions were better in Switzerland. They ended up spending more on choppers than the accommodation.
Like royalty, the super rich love their helicopters, but they prize seclusion even higher. Certainly this was the case for the American pop star who rented not only the best chalet in Gstaad, but also the 10 surrounding it. This reportedly involved paying several of the chalet owners to be somewhere else for a week – but at least her entourage had somewhere nice to stay.
All this does make you question how much is too much. St Moritz is synonymous with sybaritic skiing but more achievable levels of luxury (in comparision with Chesa el Toula at least) can be found at The Kulm or Badrutt’s Palace; the king and queen of the resort’s five-star hotels.
I stayed at night at the former, which recently starred in BBC Two’s Amazing Hotels: Life Beyond the Lobby, and is famously where winter tourism was born. The latter, built by the Kulm founder’s son, is a turreted fantasy that could have been the inspiration for Hogwarts.
A double room at the Kulm costs from CHF895 (￡700) a night, still stratospherically expensive, but arguably as much of an experience as the Chesa. Bellhops wheel theatrically around the lobby, eccentric guests come and go as they have done for years, and drivers are on hand to shuttle guests to the slopes not in a Land Rover but in a smart Mercedes Vito.
And what a hotel lacks in exclusivity, it makes up for in facilities: the spa at the Kulm is a sight to behold, and might have severely eaten into our ski time had the early season conditions not been quite so beguiling. As it was, the Corviglia ski area was dusted in fresh powder, courtesy of the snowstorms that swept across the Alps this month.
Like the Chesa, the Kulm has just benefited from a partial refit: 40 rooms by French interior designer Pierre-Yves Rochon are open in time for Christmas, adding a contemporary twist to this grandest of dames. Also like Chesa, the unwaxed and unvarnished pine cladding is an olfactory delight that will help clear any blocked sinuses before hitting the slopes. The lights too are an unexpected treat: on or off they go, at the flick of a switch.
Need to know
The newly refurbished Chesa el Toula, sleeping up to 14 in six rooms – including one double bunk bedded room – is available exclusively through Leo Trippi, from CHF75,000 per week, including a chalet manager and housekeeper. Chef services start from CHF5,000 per week.
