The Waldhaus was opened on June 15, 1908 by our great-grandparents, the realization of a life-long dream. For many years, Josef Giger (1847–1921) and his wife Amalie had managed large hotels in Bad Ragaz, in Russia, in Italy and finally in St. Moritz. Now they built one of their own, exactly as they wanted it. 

Next were their daughter Helen and her husband Oskar Kienberger, who brilliantly steered the Waldhaus through many difficult years. In the third generation, the baton passed to Rolf Kienberger (1917–1994) and his wife Rita (1926-2006). Today, it is the fourth generation with Maria and Felix Dietrich-Kienberger and Maria’s brother Urs Kienberger. And the next generation is already waiting in the wings.

Since 1908, we have never missed a summer season. Winter seasons started in 1924, but were interrupted from 1939 to 1955.

If our ancestors came back, they would still find much of what they built. Obviously, the Waldhaus would not have survived without changes and new ideas. We spend 3 to 4 million Swiss francs a year on maintenance and improvements, and have done so for decades. But our main goal in this is to preserve and enhance the old, rather than to replace it. This is expressed by many of our most recent building projects with the architects Miller & Maranta from Basel and Armando Ruinelli from Soglio. Our efforts were richly rewarded when the Waldhaus was named Swiss “Historic Hotel of the Year” in 2005 by ICOMOS Switzerland, the International Council on Monuments and Sites.

It is the same determination to stay true to our roots which accounts for the fact that the Waldhaus has no more rooms and beds than when it first opened. We want to be able to take care of our guests as personally as our ancestors did. That is a major challenge in a hotel of our size; in a larger one, it would be impossible.

And that, in the end, is the point of it all. A hotel is only as good as its guests. Can we tempt you to become one? Just like Theodor Adorno, Thomas Bernhard, Joseph Beuys and David Bowie, or

Claude Chabrol

Marc Chagall

Neville Chamberlain

Peter Drucker

Friedrich Dürrenmatt

Albert Einstein

Pierre Fournier

John Kenneth Galbraith

Andreas Gursky

Clara Haskil

Hermann Hesse

Theodor Heuss

Arthur Honegger

Isabelle Huppert

Carl Gustav Jung

Erich Kästner

Otto Klemperer

Viven Leigh

Primo Levi

Max Liebermann

Rolf Liebermann

Thomas Mann

François Mauriac

Elsa Morante

Alberto Moravia

Maurizio Pollini

Emil Rathenau

Michael Redgrave

Max Reinhardt

Gerhard Richter

Paul Sacher

Maximilian Schell

Daniel Schmid

Vreni Schneider

Rudolf Serkin

Giuseppe Cardinal Siri

Georg Solti

Rod Stewart

Richard Strauss

Richard Tauber

Luchino Visconti

Bruno Walter

Fred Zinnemann