Where the uber rich chill

Preeti Verma Lal

Remember the man who knew too much? Now do not scratch your head over a bone/flesh real intellectual. Remember The Man Who Knew Too Much, a crime thriller by Alfred Hitchcock? Remember the opening scenes? That’s St Moritz, a squat snowy Swiss town which wears with panache its fame as one of the world’s most expensive ski resorts. The IQ-laden man was not the only one who trudged through the powdery snow. Bond — James Bond — was here as well. In Goldfinger and For Your Eyes Only. Blofeld, Ian Fleming’s monstrous villain in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service holed his operations in St Moritz.

Beyond the reel and the reams, there were the real men who loved St Moritz — German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche lived next door in Sils. Rabindranath Tagore, too, came to St Moritz. No one mentions why, but his signature still stays legible in the guest register of Hotel Waldhaus, which was built in 1908. Hermann Hesse, Thomas Mann and Albert Einstein, too, trooped down to the tiny village. Other regular guests included Charlie Chaplin, Henry Ford, Brigitte Bardot, the Kennedys and the Shah of Persia.

This Swiss town is so snooty about its existence that it registered its name (St Moritz) as a trademark in 1986. It is the world’s first resort to do so and since then the name has been protected in around 50 countries. Does it matter then that St Moritz is so small you can call actually call it diminutive (if you count out the tourists, the local population is barely 5,000)?

A mighty lake sits at its heart and the cobbled pathways hold history within the footfalls of pilgrims who came here to drink water from a mineral spring (the spring still exists in what is now Hotel Kempinski). History tells us that the therapeutic spring which has been known for almost 3,500 years was popular even in the Middle Ages.

St Moritz’s fate was to change in 1864 when hotel pioneer Johannes Badrutt set up Hotel Kulm. That opening marked the beginning of winter tourism in St Moritz. Perhaps there was something in the St Moritz air that it soon became the playground of the rich. All of Europe sat up and noticed when the first electric lights of Switzerland were installed in Hotel Kulm and soon came the first electric trams in the Alps. All this in a once sleepy town which was first mentioned in 1137 and named after Saint Maurice, an early Christian south Egyptian saint.

If St Moritz were to be put within a one-word parenthesis, it could pass off as the haven of skiers. The first flurry of snow brings in hundreds of skiers who waddle around in their 5 kg shoes, colourful helmets, skis and large sunglasses. Their favourite destination is Corvatsch, the highest mountain station in the Eastern Alps, famed for its groomed pistes and the country’s longest illuminated (4.2 km) night piste. If you know nothing about skiing, don’t fret, you can actually pick up your first skiing lesson at St Moritz. You don’t even have to bother about your skiing equipment or the heavy woolens that you’ll require to beat the chill. You can walk into St Moritz in linen trousers and starched shirt and borrow everything from ski shops at absolutely reasonable rates.

I am no skier. The best I could do with snow was make a snowman or ride a bicycle on Lake St Moritz. But the lake was not frozen yet. When it freezes, the lake metamorphoses into a massive playground where polo matches are held and horses race for glory at the White Turf. While horses gallop on the small lake, men drink champagne and bet. A century ago, it was on this frozen lake that skijoring was invented — a game where thoroughbreds compete with skiers in tow instead of riders on their backs.

St Moritz treasures the sound of many a high-heeled stilettos and pricey boots (steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal also has a home here). But there’s one man who is talked oft — Alfred Hitchcock for whom St Moritz was an annual ritual. Every Christmas, he checked into the swank Palace Hotel where he had honeymooned with wife Alma Reville in December 1926.

At the fag end of his career, Hitchcock had to shelve his annual trips to St Moritz where, as he confessed, did “nothing but to sit by a window and observe the snowy scene outside”. Hitchcock’s love for St Moritz never died. He could not travel so he found an arty alternative — Hitchcock had scene artists at Universal Studios to paint a large snowy backdrop to hang outside his window in Bel Air, Hollywood.

Back from St Moritz, I am going to steal Hitchcock’s arty idea. St Moritz will soon come alive on the white walls of my home.