RETO GURTNER
A native of the mountainous Swiss canton of Grisons, Reto Gurtner took over his family’s businesses at a young age, and set about doing business with innovative concepts inspired by the skateboard culture he’d admired while studying in Los Angeles. Now the mustachioed fifty-something runs 29 mountain roads and lifts and has attracted a new demographic of snowboarders and free-stylers to his home slopes. Gurtner’s vision continues in rocksresort, a mixed-use hotel/condo compound in Laax, which is slated to open in 2009.
MEET RETO
“It was always my desire to try new ways,” says Reto Gurtner, whose philosophy is to always be a little ahead of his time. And that’s exactly what this mountain man has done, using what he calls “the raw materials” of his native, pristine Laax-Flims-Falera region as a backdrop to and a basis for hotel properties that “push the envelope”, so to speak. Along, of course, with new ways to take low-impact but high-drama advantage of the stunning landscape. “Combining what’s good for the soul, spirit, and body is our daily task,” he explains. “We always have to ask … is our strategy still pure? This is more and more important if you don’t want to be one of thousands of hotels around the world.”
MADE BY ORIGINALS
Behind every hotel in Design Hotels’™ curated collection is an original, holistic concept. And behind each successful concept is a person or team who – in a flash of inspiration or a moment of accidental discovery – thought it up and made it into a reality.
Design Hotels™ properties are Made by Originals. Whether designers or developers, CEOs or chefs, owners or operators, our originals are always outstanding personalities and extraordinary thinkers. They are the motors behind pioneering design and revolutionary hospitality. They are the instigators of new movements in how we travel and live today.