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The Gütsch is a hill in the west of the city of Lucerne. A long time ago guard fires burned here to warn the city in times of war or other dangers. The Gütsch Tower was built in 1590 as the end point of the city fortifications and remained in existence until a fire in 1888. In 1859 Burkhard Pfyffer bought the land from the town and was granted the right to run an inn on the Gütsch. The inn was bought by Ignaz Businger in 1879 and expanded into a hotel. With the construction of the Gütschbahn in 1884, it became easier for guests to reach the hotel.
A large part of the hotel was completely destroyed in the great fire of 1888. In 1901 the hotel received its present fairytale castle appearance with towers and oriels. During the First World War and until 1921 the Hotel Gütsch remained closed. During the Second World War it had to perform military service and accommodated in turn refugees, returning emigrants, and prisoners of war.
In 2010 the city of Lucerne granted the new owner Alexander Lebedev permission to extend and renovate the hotel and in 2014 the hotel reopened its doors after a thorough renovation. The last renovations in 2014 focused particularly on the preservation of historical details such as ceiling stucco, wood carvings, parquet floors, and hand-painted wood panelling. English interior designer Martyn Lawrence Bullard has been successful in Château Gütsch back its historic charm while enriching it with all the modern amenities that discerning hotel guests expect.
Over the last 130 years, our Château Gütsch has experienced an exciting history, accommodating famous guests including kings and queens, diplomats, world stars and, of course, the citizens of the city of Lucerne.
It was purchased by Russian businessman Evgeny Lebedev in 2012, who turned it into a luxury hotel-restaurant.
References:The Pilgrimage Church of Wies (Wieskirche) is an oval rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by Dominikus Zimmermann. It is located in the foothills of the Alps in the municipality of Steingaden.
The sanctuary of Wies is a pilgrimage church extraordinarily well-preserved in the beautiful setting of an Alpine valley, and is a perfect masterpiece of Rococo art and creative genius, as well as an exceptional testimony to a civilization that has disappeared.
The hamlet of Wies, in 1738, is said to have been the setting of a miracle in which tears were seen on a simple wooden figure of Christ mounted on a column that was no longer venerated by the Premonstratensian monks of the Abbey. A wooden chapel constructed in the fields housed the miraculous statue for some time. However, pilgrims from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and even Italy became so numerous that the Abbot of the Premonstratensians of Steingaden decided to construct a splendid sanctuary.