St Moritz, Verbier, Gstaad… Andermatt? If the first three have been established alpine destinations of choice for the world’s elite for generations, the fourth Swiss ski resort on the list is perhaps something of an outlier.
It’s true that James Bond once passed through in his Aston Martin DB5 on his way to the nearby Furka Pass in a memorable car chase with the eponymous villain of Goldfinger. In real life, Andermatt was for many years a quiet garrison town – an alpine Swiss army outpost where young men (including the current Swiss ambassador to London, as he recalled at a recent reception) came to do their national service. There was little else there, other than land that was used to graze cattle in the summer.
Sawiris’s transformation
By 2005, the army had moved out and the Egyptian billionaire Samih Sawiris moved in, with a plan to transform it. To give Andermatt its dues, it enjoyed cult status as a destination for freeride and off-piste skiing thanks to the steep, shaded slopes of the 2,961m Gemsstock mountain. But there was little infrastructure either on the mountain or in the valley.
Then Sawiris, the man behind the property developer Orascom, began to invest the first of the $2 billion he is believed to have pumped into the town.
In 2013, the 119-room Chedi hotel arrived and occupied a prime position on the valley floor, close to both the cobbled streets of Andermatt’s Old Town and to the foot of the gondola that whisks skiers up to the mellower and sunnier Nätschen side of the ski area.
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The arrival of The Chedi – which is still impressive more than a decade after it opened – put Andermatt on the map and injected a sense of internationalism. It is spacious, with moody lighting, an epic spa, a two-Michelin-starred Japanese restaurant (among other dining options) and a comfortable ski concierge area where helpful ‘ski butlers’ ease the burden of grappling with your equipment at either end of a day on the slopes.
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Sawiris’ master stroke may have been the deal he did to secure a rare exemption from a federal law, Lex Koller, that means only Swiss nationals or residents can buy property in the country. Andermatt appears to be the only place in the whole of Switzerland where non-residents can purchase real estate without restrictions (time-limited until 2040).
This unique opportunity is not the only attraction. In 2022 the American behemoth Vail Resorts acquired a majority stake in the skiable area and announced that it would invest CHF 149 million, ploughing money into on-mountain infrastructure, including lifts.
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This means that Andermatt has been added to the portfolio of resorts accessible to holders of Vail’s Epic Pass – essentially a lift ticket that provides access to all of its 40-plus resorts around the world for a one-off annual fee. Most are in North America, but Crans Montana (another Swiss resort with growth plans) is a recent addition.
Vail is not a universally popular company. It has faced protests and criticism in America, accused of too readily pursuing profit at the expense of local communities. In Andermatt locals are cautious, but they have already received a dividend in the form of an expanded lift and piste network which has joined up parts of the newly formed Andermatt-Sedrun-Disentis ski area that were previously not connected. I’m told that further extension of the lift network is planned.
Beyond the mountains
There is plenty going on away from the mountain, too. Historically the hub of activity in Andermatt was its modest Old Town, but the centre of gravity is shifting as Orascom develops the area to the west known as Andermatt Reuss.
This is where a bright and breezy four-star Radisson Blu hotel opened in 2018, but the area is also home to several new 83 luxury apartment buildings and a recently unveiled high street with stylish, upmarket retail outlets and a new – outstanding – restaurant, IGNIV, which is the fifth outpost of that name from the three-Michelin-star chef Andreas Caminada. (‘The Swiss Gordon Ramsay’, is how someone describes him.)
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I’m shown round a four-bedroom, 2,000 sq ft property in a new 12-apartment building in Andermatt Reuss, which is listed for sale at CHF 4.8 million. The exteriors of some of the structures in this new part of town are mostly the work of Swiss architects and might seem a little utilitarian – almost Brutalist – in some cases, but the tiered balconies of this building, which is called Gilda, make it pleasing to the eye. The interiors boast high ceilings and a palpable feeling of quality in the fixtures and fittings.
When restrictions on property ownership were lifted, some openly wondered if the town would lose its ‘traditional Swiss character’ (I take this as shorthand for concerns that a large number of non-Europeans would move in).
But apparently this hasn’t happened. According to a ‘broad brushstroke’ description of the buyers provided by Andermatt’s marketing department, 65 to 70 per cent of those who have purchased property are existing Swiss residents, with about half of these being Swiss nationals. Of the other half, Brits, Italians and Germans who already had homes in Switzerland are among the largest groups of buyers. The other 30 to 35 per cent of buyers are international.
I speak to one Reuss resident, Karen O’Mahony, the founder and general partner of private equity firm PEAL Capital Group, who couldn’t be happier that she took the plunge. Having worked for a family office and lived in London from 2004 to 2020, she took the decision to move out here full time during the pandemic and hasn’t looked back.
O’Mahony knew Sawiris socially and first heard of Andermatt in 2013 when he suggested she come and check it out. She did, and was blown away by the ‘unbelievably luxurious’ Chedi. She bought a one-bedroom residence in the hotel and later became, she says, the 17th person to buy in Reuss when she purchased a property off plan in 2015. It was completed in 2017 and has ‘doubled in value’.
Fellow Andermatt residents are ‘business owners, people in finance, hedge fund managers, private wealth managers, real estate investors,’ says O’Mahony, adding that – having spent time in Verbier, Zug and elsewhere – she’s found it to be the ‘most welcoming community in Switzerland’.
O’Mahony has enjoyed living here so much that she plans to ‘upgrade’ to a larger apartment that will be built within a new five-star hotel slated to open in 2027, The Alpinist. The property will have 164 private residences, a 24,000 sq ft spa and gym, and look out onto the rugged Gemsstock. If more of her peers follow O’Mahony’s lead, perhaps the word ‘Andermatt’ will soon resound with the same cachet as some of the longer-established Swiss towns on our list.
This feature first appeared in Spear’s Magazine Issue 95. Click here to subscribe
