page_title: Sporthotel Pontresina
section_title: Hotel Pontresina and Post (1881)
hierarchical_section_title: Sporthotel Pontresina / Chronology / Hotel Pontresina and Post (1881)
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Pontresina - Hotel Pontresina &amp; Post um 1881
context_page_description: The Sporthotel Pontresina was completed in 1881. It is a three star hotel in the resort village of Pontresina, slightly less than two hours to the south of Chur in Graubünden, Switzerland.
  The hotel comprises 140 beds in 82 rooms, with underground parking for 60 cars. During the summer season its focus is on hikers and mountain bikers, while winter season guests mostly come for the skiing and other winter sports.
context_section_description: Most of the many hotels in Pontresina were either constructed as purpose built or else the result of a change of use for an existing house. The Sporthotel Pontresina's structure results from a more convoluted and iterative series of  steps. The hotel that opened in 1881 still, in most respects, comprised at its heart the old "Maison Stiffler" guest house, which itself dated back only to 1866, but the architect brothers Ragaz also integrated into the overall building the previously separate photographic shop acquired from the photographer, named Alex Flury.   On the ground floor of the former photographic shop the hotelier Stoppany installed Pontresina's (second) post station, to generate customers for the hotel and its restaurant.
  The architects designed a new unifying facade for the combined buildings and added an extra floor on the top of what had been the Maison Stiffler, resulting in a four-storey building. With the traditional "Post Hotel" ("Hotel Post") nomenclature and an increased number of relatively basic rooms this part of the hotel provided a suitable overnight halt for stage coach passengers and other guests with simple requirements.
  The fourth floor extension on the main building applied a simplified reading of the Renaissance Revival style, its flat roof topped off with a large "Hotel Pontresina" sign. Its significantly greater height caused it to tower above the less flamboyantly restyled building beside it. The embellishment elements of the five-section front facade were mostly formed of wood, sheet metal and zinc castings, coated in stone coloured paint. The ground floor contained the reception area and the restaurant, which was open to passing trade as well as to hotel guests not wishing to spend time and money on a bit meal (so eating "à la carte"). At the back of the building the ground floor also incorporated the kitchens for the restaurant and hotel. Upstairs, the more expensive guest rooms were on the first and second floors, benefitting from the large windows conferred by the remodelled facade on the building's western (front) face, which provided views over the road towards the Roseg valley and glacier. The two corner rooms were particularly coveted, thanks to the small balconies emerging from the bevelled corner shape of the building. The more modest top floor rooms were provided for guests with less demanding requirements and for the servants accompanying some of the more affluent guests. The 1881 extension left the hotel with a capacity of around 66 beds.
  On the western face of the building, close to the mountainside, the grand dining room was positioned above the kitchen on the first floor. Its height encompassed both the first and second floors. Guests eating here benefitted from a multi-course menu, albeit without being able to select individually the dishes they wished to be served. Most guests dined at the long banquet style table (the "Table d’hôte"). Main meals were served at fixed times - 13.00 and 19.30 - and guests were politely but firmly informed that when they arrived late they would miss out on those courses that had already been served.   ("Herrschaften, die verspätet ankommen, werden mit laufender Platte servier'".)   For a supplementary payment of 1 Swiss franc (lunch) or 2 Swiss francs (dinner) guests could elect to be served not at the shared long table but at separately assigned small tables.
  The original painted ceiling of the grand dining room is today hidden behind a painted plaster ceiling. Separated and hidden, in a hidden mezzanine gallery, was the storage location for the hotel silver, plates and dishes, together with heated hotplates and centre pieces for the tables and other elements appropriate to the quality of the guests and their formal meals at the "Table d’hôte". Above the dining room, on the fourth floor, there were more of the modest hotel rooms, similar to those on the fourth floor at the front of the building.
  Individual private guest bathrooms, even in the most exclusive hotels, were not usual in Europe in the 1880s. Each floor had a grouping of washroo
caption: The Hotel Pontresina after the 1881 rebuild (now with the new church behind it).(ca. 1885)
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