The Château Gütsch is a historic

château A château (, ; plural: châteaux) is a manor house, or palace, or residence of the lord of the manor, or a fine country house of nobility or gentry, with or without fortifications, originally, and still most frequently, in French-speaking re ...

Lucerne Lucerne ( ) or Luzern ()Other languages: ; ; ; . is a city in central Switzerland, in the Languages of Switzerland, German-speaking portion of the country. Lucerne is the capital of the canton of Lucerne and part of the Lucerne (district), di ...

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

. In 1859, Burkhard Pfyffer bought a plot of land on the Gütsch hill from the town and was granted the right to run an inn. The inn was then bought by Ignaz Businger in 1879 and expanded into a hotel. Like many hotels of the

Belle Epoque Belle may refer to: People and fictional characters * Belle (given name), a list of people and fictional characters * Belle (surname), a list of people * Southern belle, a stock character representing a young woman of the American South's upp ...

, The Château Gütsch was built on a vantage point above lakes, rivers, and cities, in this case the city Lucerne and the river

Reuss Reuss may refer to: *Reuss (surname) * Reuss (river) in Switzerland * Imperial County of Reuss or Reuß, several former states or countries in present-day Germany, and the People's State of Reuss * Principality of Reuss-Greiz and Principality of R ...

. The Château was built in 1884 specifically to support the hotel. In 1868 Queen Victoria stayed at a site near the hotel with Prince Arthur and

Princess Louise Princess Louise may refer to: People * Louise of Denmark (disambiguation), various princesses * Louise of Prussia (disambiguation), various princesses * Louise of Saxe-Meiningen (disambiguation), various princesses * Princess Louise of Schleswig-H ...

. As part of a significant transalpine railroad development and modernization plan in Switzerland in the second half of the 19th century, the Gütsch Funicular railline was built connecting Lucerne to the château. A large part of the hotel was completely destroyed in the great fire of 1888. In 1901 the hotel received its present appearance, being modelled after Neuschwanstein in

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. It was purchased by Evgeny Lebedev in 2012, who commissioned Martyn Lawrence Bullard to renovate it. The current owner is Kirill Androsov.

References

Residential buildings completed in the 19th century Buildings and structures in Lucerne Hotels in Switzerland 19th-century architecture in Switzerland {{Switzerland-struct-stub