Hotel Splendide

Hotel Splendide

Hotel Splendide opened in Crans-Montana in 1954, and the Barras family has run it ever since, a stretch of continuity now past seventy years that few hotels in this resort can claim. The building itself carries that history in its bones: renovated in 2015 and 2018, its interiors mix pale wood and warm colour rather than glass and steel, and the two dining rooms and fireplace bar feel lived-in rather than staged. It sits a few minutes' walk from the centre of Crans-Montana, close enough to golf courses, hiking trails and ski runs that guests come for both summer and winter seasons, and the hotel opens accordingly, closing for the shoulder months in between. With only twenty-five rooms across two floors, it suits people who want a fixed point of contact rather than a directory of departments: staff who remember your name, a concierge who can book a ski pass, a library corner and a ping-pong table rather than a spa menu. South-facing rooms open onto private balconies with a straight view of the Valais Alps, and more than nine in ten rooms have a balcony of some kind. Families get a playroom and rooms sized for four; couples get the same wood-panelled quiet. It will not suit anyone chasing a design hotel or a five-restaurant resort, and there is no spa beyond a single massage room. What it has instead is ownership that has stayed with one family for more than seventy years, still run by people trained at Lausanne's hotel school. That continuity, unbroken since 1954, is the one thing this hotel has that its neighbours, however polished, cannot replicate. A twenty-five-room hotel in Crans-Montana that the Barras family has run since 1954, with a fireplace bar, two dining rooms and south-facing balconies looking straight at the Valais Alps. It suits guests who want to be recognised at reception, not people chasing a spa or a design overhaul.