Hotel Altein

Faern Arosa Altein doesn’t look like a fashionable new Alpine hotel from the outside. And that’s part of its appeal. The substantial hillside building has a history stretching back long before its current incarnation, once serving as a sanatorium. Rather than disguising that architectural weight, the transformation embraces it, turning the property into something warmer, younger and considerably more sociable. For its reinvention, Faern Resorts commissioned London-based Run For The Hills, marking the studio’s first complete hotel project. The brief wasn’t to create another pale-timber chalet. It was to rediscover the personality already hiding inside the building.

Alpine Modernism with a Retro Wink

The interiors draw from the colours of the mountains without becoming overly rustic. Forest greens meet berry reds, burnt rust and golden ochre. Warm timber joinery is layered with wool, bouclé, tactile upholstery and sheepskin, while terrazzo tables, antique brass and veined stone introduce a more urban edge. There are moments of deliberate nostalgia too. A wooden reception desk has an almost Wes Anderson-like theatricality, while vintage mountain photography and Slim Aarons imagery recall an era when Alpine holidays meant glamorous ski clothes, cocktails and afternoons spent watching the slopes from a sun terrace. The effect is retro without becoming themed.

Rooms Made for Coming Back From the Mountain

Across 126 rooms and suites, Run For The Hills created a flexible design language capable of adapting to very different room sizes and layouts. Curved custom headboards soften the spaces, joined by contemporary joinery, playful lighting and Alpine zigzag textiles. Swiss-cross wool blankets add another graphic layer, while woven panelling, clay-toned walls and warm timber keep everything grounded. Many rooms have generous balconies overlooking Arosa’s rooftops, valley and mountains. Bathrooms are sharper and more contemporary, with terrazzo floors, black-framed showers and brass fittings. It’s precisely the kind of room you want to return to after several hours outside: uncomplicated, warm and comfortable, but still unmistakably designed.

Zus Brasserie

The hotel’s grand dining room makes the most of its architectural scale. Large windows look over Arosa while the historic stucco ceiling and sweeping marble staircase create a surprisingly elegant backdrop. Forest-green banquettes, bark browns, berry tones and rich timber pull the mountain landscape indoors without resorting to chalet pastiche. A sculptural tree rises through the neighbouring buffet space beneath the arches, adding a touch of playful drama. This isn’t fine dining dressed for the mountains. It’s a relaxed social dining room designed for long breakfasts and evenings when nobody feels particularly inclined to leave the hotel.

Alpensand: Arosa from Above

The hotel’s personality turns up another notch upstairs. Alpensand Panoramic Restaurant & Social Club occupies the fifth floor, opening onto a large terrace with some of the property’s best views across the mountains, village and lake. Its interiors channel 1970s Alpine resort culture through vintage-inspired wallpapers, velvet sofas, deep armchairs and knowingly kitsch mountain imagery. By day, sunlight pours in. By late afternoon, it becomes the obvious place for an aperitif after skiing. And after dark, the mountains disappear into the windows while Arosa begins to twinkle below.

Cocktails in the Old Library

Downstairs, Alchemilla Parlour Bar occupies the hotel’s historic wood-panelled library. This is the moodier sibling of Alpensand: dark stone tables, deep upholstery, intimate sofa nooks and surreal collage artwork inspired by vintage Alpine fashion photography. It’s exactly where a mountain hotel should send you after dinner. Not to bed. To another cocktail.

More Than a Ski Hotel

Faern Arosa Altein works particularly well because skiing isn’t allowed to dominate the entire experience. Arosa’s lifts are close by, with access to skiing, snowboarding, cross-country trails, sledging and snowshoeing in winter. Heated boot racks wait when you return. But the hotel also contains one of the town’s largest wellness areas, with swimming pools, sauna, steam room, water jets and treatment facilities. In summer, the landscape simply changes role. The surrounding mountains become territory for hiking, mountain biking and golf, while the hotel’s outdoor pool and tennis courts add another reason to stay put. There are even children’s and teenagers’ games rooms, meeting spaces and a cinema.

A Different Kind of Swiss Alpine Hotel

The most successful part of Faern Arosa Altein’s transformation is that it doesn’t try to pretend the building is something it isn’t. This is not a tiny timber chalet hidden in the snow. It is a substantial historic mountain hotel — and Run For The Hills has used that scale, its arches, staircases and social spaces to create something distinctly more exuberant. Faern Arosa Altein captures an appealing side of Alpine travel that contemporary hotels sometimes forget: skiing is only part of the story. The rest is about fireside chairs, oversized terraces, slightly glamorous mountain bars, wool blankets, cocktails and watching the weather roll across the peaks. By combining the bones of an old Arosa institution with colour, texture and a very welcome dose of 1970s mountain nostalgia, the hotel feels less like a makeover than the beginning of a livelier second life.