A CHF 40,000-a-night suite in St Moritz, a CHF 24.9 million demolition fight in Gstaad and a six-day lift pass in Klosters for £326: three resorts, one social class, wildly different bills.
Prince Karim Aga Khan IV built a chalet on the Gstaad promenade in 1962 and kept it to himself for most of six decades. Ultima Collection bought it in 2020, and since 1 December 2025 it has taken paying guests, with the agent Firefly Collection listing it from CHF 125,000 to CHF 250,000 a week. The three resorts old money still returns to all work roughly like that now: the names stay, a door opens a crack, the price goes up.
A word on what qualifies below. Every figure carries a named source: Engel & Völkers for land values, Gault Millau for the hotel award, the Berner Zeitung via bluewin for the court fight in Oberbort, resort operators and letting agents for prices. There are no net worths here, because no named outlet has published verified ones for the Aristrain, Bertarelli, Wathén-Fayed or Livanos families. Club rosters from a decade ago are flagged as historic. Royal skiing means the documented visits, not this season’s diary.
1. Gstaad is the most expensive ski address on earth, at over €85,000 a square metre
The Engel & Völkers ranking of the world’s most exclusive ski resorts puts Gstaad first, with prime locations reaching over €85,000 (CHF 70,000) per square metre, and St Moritz second, where the agency says top chalet prices reach €75,000 per square metre. The village itself has about 7,200 residents, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The arithmetic is worth holding on to for the rest of this list: the most costly square metre in Alpine property sits in a settlement smaller than Henley-on-Thames.
2. Gstaad Palace has been the village’s front room since 1913, and the Scherz family still runs it
The hotel opened in 1913 and remains family-owned, which in a sector of brand managers is the whole point. Elizabeth Taylor bought a chalet in Gstaad with Eddie Fisher in 1962 and became one of the town’s most visible part-timers; former general manager Ernst Scherz recalled that “In the ’70s, Taylor and Richard Burton were Palace regulars”, speaking to The Hollywood Reporter. His son Andrea, now general manager, told the same publication that celebrities “like to come here to hide away”. The Gentleman’s Journal lists the earlier congregation: Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier of Monaco had a chalet, as did Yehudi Menuhin and Peter Sellers, while Gunter Sachs, Brigitte Bardot, Gianni Agnelli and Porfirio Rubirosa handled the louche end of the register.
3. The Aga Khan’s 1962 chalet now takes bookings as Ultima Promenade Gstaad
Prince Karim Aga Khan IV, spiritual leader of the world’s Shia Ismaili Muslims, died in Lisbon in February 2025 aged 88, after 67 years as imam. The Gstaad house he built in 1962 had already changed hands: Ultima Collection acquired it in 2020, describing it as one of only a handful of private residences sitting directly on the promenade, and opened it to guests on 1 December 2025, according to SnowSports News. Firefly Collection’s listing runs from CHF 125,000 to CHF 250,000 per week. The chalet did not move an inch; the category it belongs to did.
4. A CHF 24.9 million rebuild in Oberbort has the neighbours in court
Oberbort is among the most expensive residential districts in Switzerland, and the family of Spanish steel industrialist José María Aristrain plans to demolish and rebuild Chalet Bonheur there for roughly CHF 24.9 million. Opponents of the project include Heini Wathén-Fayed, widow of former Harrods owner Mohamed Al-Fayed, per the Berner Zeitung. On 5 October 2026 the Bern Administrative Court overturned an earlier denial, which is not the same as approving the scheme; the matter remains live. Elsewhere in the same district, the trade outlet The Super Prime has reported a development called Chalet Oberbort, pitched as the world’s largest chalet at 7,000 square metres across three interconnected buildings, by Byron Baciocchi’s real-estate arm Unica Capital, and a new hotel, The Park Gstaad, slated for the 2026/27 season. Whether either has planning, buyers or tenants has not been set out publicly.
5. Institut Le Rosey moves to Gstaad every winter, and so do the parents
The school’s winter campus is in Gstaad, and its alumni include the Aga Khan and the King of Belgium. During the ski term, parents descend en masse, renting suites at the Palace, the Alpina and the Bellevue and leasing chalets in Saanen and Lauenen, according to The Gentleman’s Journal. That seasonal migration explains the letting market better than any celebrity sighting: Premium Switzerland advertises Gstaad chalets from CHF 990 to CHF 35,000 a night, while Luxury Chalet Co lists its ultra-prime stock from CHF 50,000 to CHF 100,000 a week or price on application. Among the residents who are there regardless of term dates: Valentino Garavani, who has owned a home in Gstaad since the late 1970s, per The Hollywood Reporter, and the Swiss billionaire Ernesto Bertarelli, named as a Gstaad resident by Arway Travel.
6. Klosters is where the Windsors learned to ski, and six days on the lifts costs £326
The tour operator Inghams describes Klosters as the favoured resort of the Royal Family, King Charles included, and Oxford Ski dates the association to the late 1970s, with Prince William and Prince Harry first finding the slopes there in the 1980s and 1990s. Charles skied Davos with Lady Sarah Spencer in February 1978 and took her younger sister two years later; he and Diana were photographed skiing in Klosters on 6 February 1986. One of the resort’s gondolas carries the name Prince of Wales. Oxford Ski reports that William and Harry favoured the local nightclub Casa Antica, and Consensio lists Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary of Denmark and King Carl Gustav and Queen Silvia of Sweden among Davos-Klosters regulars; both are single accounts. Six-day adult lift passes ran from £326 to £359 at the start of the 2026 winter season, per the agent sno.co.uk. There is no five-star hotel in the village at all, which is most of the discretion right there.
7. The Corviglia Club has kept St Moritz’s real guest list since 1930
Founded in 1930 by a largely aristocratic group that included several Rothschilds and Agnellis as well as the Duke of Alba, the Corviglia Ski Club is the mountain’s social summit and admits by invitation. Urbanologie has put membership at roughly 160 names, citing Prince Constantine of Liechtenstein, the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Alexander of Yugoslavia; that roster is historic and not confirmed for 2026. WWD has reported that the club is run by Rolf Sachs, son of Gunter. Its annual Glamour Girl competition was won in 1951 by Jacqueline de Ribes, who later told The Rake that “All the ambience was at The Palace”. The shipping money built accordingly: The Rake describes a Livanos triptych of chalets in St Moritz, one occupied by Stavros Livanos’s widow, one by his daughter Tina and one by his son George.
8. Badrutt’s Palace is Gault Millau’s Hotel of the Year 2026, and the top suite is CHF 40,000 a night
Early guests included Princess Mary, grandmother of Queen Elizabeth II, according to Falstaff, which also records that Gunter Sachs rented the hotel’s tower for several years and had Andy Warhol decorate it. The 2026 award from Gault Millau followed an investment of over CHF 70 million, reported by snbchf.com as roughly $87 million; the new Serlas Wing added 25 suites, the grandest of which is advertised at CHF 40,000 per night. Standard rooms at the hotel average between $845 and $1,343 on Tripadvisor’s review data. Two numbers, one building, and nobody in the lobby looks at either.
So which of the three is actually within reach, for a reader doing sums rather than inheriting them? Klosters, comfortably. There is no single five-star hotel to price you out, the royal connection is a matter of gondola signage and photographs from 1986 rather than a velvet rope, and a six-day pass costs £326. Gstaad charges over €85,000 a square metre to belong and settles its disputes in the Bern Administrative Court. St Moritz keeps a list drawn up in 1930 and a suite at CHF 40,000 a night for the people who are not on it.
Cover photographs: Studio publicity still via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain); Wikimedia Commons (Public domain).
