In 1905, Robert Steffen, a local schoolteacher in Gstaad, purchased land on which to build a new hotel. He recruited investors from
Lausanne and
Geneva for the project originally called the "Royal-Hôtel and Winter Palace." The hotel was opened in December 1913, with a design from Dutch architect, Adrien van Dorsser. In 1915, it held a men's tennis tournament on outdoor
clay courts. The tournament would eventually become the
Swiss Open. Soon after the hotel's inauguration,
World War I broke out in Europe, inhibiting the Palace's success at first. It saw growth in the 1920s but was again hampered by the
Great Depression. Ernst and Sylvia Scherz took over as directors of the hotel in 1938. During
World War II, a vault in the hotel's cellar was used to safeguard money and other valuables held by the
Swiss Bank Corporation (now known as
UBS). That vault is currently a
fondue restaurant. After the war, the hotel became a common vacation spot for royalty, including
King Leopold III, the
King of Afghanistan, and members of the
Spanish royal family. In the 1950s, Scherz helped establish events like the
Menuhin Festival Gstaad to increase business at the hotel. Exterior shots of the hotel appear in the 1975 film,
The Return of the Pink Panther, with
Peter Sellers in his role as
Inspector Clouseau. In 2013 and 2014, the sixth floor suites were refurbished. In April 2022,
Roman Polanski began shooting the film
The Palace in the hotel. ==Description==