Tour Hauser & Wirth’s snug new hotel in the Swiss Alps

chesa marchetta artfarm hauser and wirth — (Image credit: Photography by Dave Watts)

There really is no place like home. Hauser & Wirth’s Artfarm – the gallery company’s hospitality arm – may operate on an international stage, but for Swiss co-founders Iwan and Manuela Wirth, its first opening on home soil feels particularly significant. Chesa Marchetta joins the group’s full-blooded portfolio of hotels, restaurants and retail, and is as transportive and singular as one would expect. For the Wirths, each project is an act of place-making: rooted in art, individuality and connection, with no two expressions ever repeating themselves.

Following the opening of The Fife Arms in Braemar in 2019, the group’s second hotel unfolds in the introspective village of Sils Maria in the Engadin Valley – a place that has long resisted the seductions of speed. The location is rich with personal and historical resonance: it’s the village Iwan frequented as a child with his father, a mountain guide and architect, and it lies three hours from Zurich, where the Wirths founded their first gallery in 1992 alongside Manuela’s mother, Ursula.

Chesa Marchetta, Sils Maria

Chesa Marchetta occupies the shell of a former restaurant and pension, owned by the Godly family for two generations since 1947. It also carries the cultural residue of its life as an artistic salon, once frequented by figures such as Gerhard Richter and Jean-Michel Basquiat. The wider Engadin Valley has long exerted a magnetic pull on artists and thinkers too, such as Giacometti, Nietzsche and Segantini, drawn by a clarity that only this landscape can offer.

The renovation of the 16th-century property, which required reconstruction from within, was entrusted to Paris-based architecture firm Laplace, also responsible for Artfarm’s Mount St Restaurant and the adjoining 18th-century listed Audley pub in Mayfair. The project unfolded over four years, guided less by formal briefing than by observation and immersion. ‘With Iwan and Manuela, there was never a brief in the conventional sense. Our work together always begins with walking,’ says Luis Laplace, principal and co-founder of the studio, which he runs with his partner, Christophe Comoy.

Laplace approached the work with a conservation instinct: to save what could be saved, and intervene only where time had left no choice. Outside, the team revived the traditional sgraffito technique, a method of revealing rather than adding, cutting through the surface to uncover the colour beneath. Indoors, historic Engadin wall paintings depicting wildlife were carefully reinstated.

Structurally, the 13-key, sylvan property comprises four interconnected buildings: the main hotel, two adjoining barns housing the food and beverage spaces, and a three-bedroom house. Staying true to the Engadin visual language was essential: an aesthetic shaped by centuries of life in the surrounding valleys. ‘A sleigh from Sils is not the same as one from Bergell. The smallest detail carries a geography,’ points out the Buenos Aires-born architect.

Regional materials – Soglio granite, reclaimed spruce, original Val Fex stone slabs – form the foundation of the project. The aim was integrity, not novelty. Guest rooms avoid pastiche, engaging instead with the subtleties of place, furnished with handpicked local antiques, and window embroideries created in collaboration with the Benedictine nuns of Kloster St Johann in Müstair. As expected, the art collection is exceptional throughout: a mix of works by Old Masters and local artists, alongside murals by Corin Sands.

The 46-cover restaurant, with a separate entrance to the hotel, is open to both guests and non-residents under the guidance of chef Davide Degiovanni. Inspired by the property’s most recent owners – sisters Maria and Christina Godly – and their ascetic, seasonal approach to cooking (they famously served just one dish a day), it celebrates the meeting of Italian and Swiss cultures and stands as the most extroverted space in the house. Degiovanni’s signature here is aromatic gnocchi with brown butter and truffle, based on his nonna’s recipe.

By contrast, the Lounge Bar, set beside reception, is designed for small, spontaneous moments. ‘It’s the place where conversations begin,’ Laplace muses. The menu distils the idea of ‘eating and drinking the mountain’: local cheeses with preserves, honey and nuts, or charcuterie with pickled mushrooms, paired with wines and spirits drawn from the surrounding region. From the cocktail list, don’t miss the Alpine Juniper: mezcal and rounded añejo tequila layered with alpine botanicals.

The ceiling here was restored in local spruce, beam by beam, following its original pattern with forensic precision. Fixtures such as a 1950s Jean Touret suspension and a 2006 chandelier by Jason Rhoades, from the epilogue of his critically acclaimed Pussy Trilogy, establish a dialogue between eras without hierarchy. There are also striking works by Louise Bourgeois, including Spider II (1995) and Janus in a Leather Jacket (1968), alongside Nicolas Party’s vibrant Landscape (2020).

It is here, Laplace admits, that he feels most connected to the project. ‘It’s the soul of the house. The emotion lies in the subtleties: an irregularity in the grain, a beam slightly bowed by time, a shaft of light that falls differently each hour. Many of these details are almost invisible, yet they are the ones that stay with you.’

Chesa Marchetta is located at Via da Marias 88, 7514 Sils im Engadin/Segl, Switzerland

A version of this story appears in the March 2026 Style Issue of Wallpaper*, available in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News + now. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

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Sofia de la Cruz is the Travel Editor at Wallpaper*. A self-declared flâneuse, she feels most inspired when taking the role of a cultural observer – chronicling the essence of cities and remote corners through their nuances, rituals, and people. Her work lives at the intersection of art, design, and culture, often shaped by conversations with the photographers who capture these worlds through their lens.