The Hermitage Hotel in

Mount Cook Village Aoraki / Mount Cook, often referred to as Mount Cook Village, is located within New Zealand's Aoraki / Mount Cook National Park at the end of , only south of the summit of the country's highest mountain, also called Aoraki/Mount Cook, in the S ...

, New Zealand, is a hotel located inside the

Aoraki / Mount Cook National Park Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park is in the South Island of New Zealand. Aoraki / Mount Cook, New Zealand's highest mountain, and the eponymous village lie within the park. The area was gazetted as a national park in October 1953 and consists ...

, north of

Twizel Twizel () is the largest town in the Mackenzie District, in the Canterbury Region of the South Island of New Zealand. The town was founded in 1968 to house construction workers on the Upper Waitaki Hydroelectric Scheme. Today, Twizel is a se ...

. The current building is from 1958 and forms the main part of Mount Cook Village, being the only large building.

Description

The hotel and a lodge & motel complex also owned and operated by The Hermitage, form the main parts of

, with the hotel being the only large building in the area. The current site, slightly elevated on the valley-side was chosen in 1913 for its unimpeded views of

Aoraki / Mount Cook Aoraki / Mount Cook is the highest mountain in New Zealand. Its height, as of 2014, is listed as . It sits in the Southern Alps, the mountain range that runs the length of the South Island. A popular tourist destination, it is also a favourite ...

and Mount Sefton. Most rooms in the main hotel building facing north enjoy views of Aoraki / Mount Cook, as do the two restaurants through their large glass windows. The peak of Aoraki / Mount Cook is only away, further up the Hooker Valley. Below the also clearly visible Mount Sefton is Huddleston Glacier, named after the original hotel developer Frank Huddleston, a surveyor and painter from Timaru, who was appointed ranger for the Mount Cook area in the 1880s. The Hermitage Hotel further houses the

Sir Edmund Hillary Sir Edmund Percival Hillary (20 July 1919 – 11 January 2008) was a New Zealand mountaineering, mountaineer, explorer, and philanthropy, philanthropist. On 29 May 1953, Hillary and Sherpa people, Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became th ...

Alpine Centre, showcasing the region and its history. It includes a cinema showing related documentary films, and a museum in the foyer, It also has a planetarium Organised tours on the nearby walking tracks, bus tours, and boat tours on the Tasman glacier lake use the hotel as their base, with tours leaving and returning at the main building's foyer and car park. The village's only retail shop is also contained within the main hotel building, comparable to a very small dairy (convenience store) in its range of groceries. The nearest supermarket is away in Twizel.

History

The current hotel is the third successive building in the area named "The Hermitage". The first one, built in 1884, was a cob house built by Frank Huddleston, in a location slightly further up the valley towards Mueller Glacier. At the time, the land was not yet a National Park, and ownership passed through various companies until it ended up being owned by the New Zealand Government in 1896. Travel from Twizel was originally by horse-drawn coaches, then later by the Mount Cook Motor Company. A larger hotel, again called The Hermitage, was built and opened at the current site in 1914 to cater to increased demand for what were one of the first

package tour A package tour, package vacation, or package holiday comprises transport and accommodation advertised and sold together by a vendor known as a tour operator. Other services may be provided such as a rental car, activities or outings during the ...

s in New Zealand in the 1920s. The hotel flourished and was extended twice, until it burned down to the ground on 15 September 1957. The government quickly designed and built a new hotel, which opened only 8 months later in May 1958. This third hotel building was later extended and upgraded several times to become the current Hermitage hotel. In May 2020, it was announced that The Hermitage would close indefinitely with the loss of 157 jobs. The smaller Mt Cook Lodge was set to reopen from 24 September 2020, which coincides with the school holidays between terms 3 and 4, but the full hotel reopened instead in July 2020. By September staff numbers were back up to about 70 and 130 rooms were open. Along with

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, also owned by Trojan Holdings, The Hermitage declined funds from the strategic tourism assets protection programme (Stapp). Along with a nearby lodge and motels, the hotel trades as Aoraki Mt Cook Alpine Village and is owned by

Trojan Holdings Trojan Holdings is a major privately held New Zealand tourism company, based in Queenstown. The company is owned by founder Sir John Davies, a former mayor of Queenstown-Lakes and prior to that mayor of Queenstown Borough. As of 2019, Davies has ...

References

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