Ultima Collection began in 2016 with Ultima Hotel Gstaad, created as a private-world alternative to the conventional five-star hotel. It later expanded into chalets, villas and serviced residences across the Alps, Geneva and the French Riviera. Rather than pursue chain scale, Ultima concentrates on fully serviced private environments organised around one party. By August 2026 the current English Collection page lists nine properties in Switzerland and France: two boutique hotels, six villas or chalets and one residence.
The brand
Ultima Collection is the hospitality signature brand operated by Ultima Capital SA, a Swiss luxury real-estate owner, developer and operator listed on BX Swiss. Its model sits between five-star hotels and high-end rental properties: some Ultima properties are boutique hotels, while others are private villas, chalets or full-floor residences with hotel-level service.
The current Collection comprises two hotels, six villas or chalets and Ultima Quai Wilson Geneva. The official English Collection page therefore shows nine properties across two countries. Ultima Corfu is excluded following Ultima Capital’s July 2026 announcement of the asset’s sale, although older experience pages remain online.
Brand philosophy
Ultima’s current brand idea is summarised as “Mastering the art of you.” The emphasis is on creating a personal world rather than asking guests to adapt to hotel routines. House managers, chefs, concierges, chauffeurs and wellness professionals can be assembled around the party, making privacy both architectural and operational.
The second principle is private intensity. Spas, cinemas, games rooms, pools, gyms and private dining are concentrated inside one residence or small cluster. The two hotels extend the same logic into a bookable format: Gstaad combines 11 suites with six private residences, while Courchevel is a hamlet of 13 ski-in/ski-out chalets.
What distinguishes it
Private worlds before public hotels. Ultima’s strongest products are not large guestrooms inside busy resorts but entire villas, chalets and residences with their own leisure infrastructure and dedicated teams.
Hospitality and real estate are integrated. Ultima Capital develops, owns or operates high-end property while Ultima Collection supplies the hospitality layer. Design, asset strategy and guest service therefore sit unusually close together.
Wellness is built into the hardware. Large private spas, treatment rooms, pools, gyms and dedicated wellbeing professionals recur across the portfolio. Wellness is often part of the residence itself rather than a shared hotel department.
Full buy-out is normal, not exceptional. For many villas and chalets the expected product is exclusive use by one family or group, frequently with minimum-stay requirements. Privacy is therefore the default commercial format rather than a premium add-on.
Alpine DNA remains visible. Gstaad established the brand, and a large share of the current portfolio remains in the Swiss and French Alps. Mediterranean and urban Geneva properties broaden the geography without removing the mountain-house origins.
WHO IT IS NOT FOR
Ultima Collection is a weak fit for travellers who want a large loyalty ecosystem, broad city coverage, conventional hotel social life or easy one-night stays across many destinations. Much of the portfolio is designed for private groups and longer stays. Guests who enjoy busy lobbies, multiple public restaurants, resort crowds or points optimisation may find the model too private and bespoke. The brand works best when space, discretion and dedicated staff matter more than network utility.
Signature houses
2016Ultima Hotel GstaadGstaad, Switzerland
The founding property remains the brand’s reference point: three interlinked chalets containing 11 suites and six private residences, combined with an extensive spa, art collection, dining and highly personalised service close to Gstaad’s centre and ski lifts.
Two interconnected chalets with 16 bedrooms, a private lake, cinema, games room and substantial wellness facilities pushed the private-residence concept beyond a chalet stay toward a self-contained resort for one group.
2020Ultima Grand Villa GenevaGeneva region, Switzerland
The 2,000-square-metre villa opened to guests in 2020 as Ultima’s major urban-residential statement near Geneva, combining multiple suites, two outdoor pools, spa, fitness, cinema, wine cellar and dedicated service.
2020Ultima Hotel CourchevelCourchevel, France
The 13-chalet ski-in/ski-out hamlet translated Ultima’s private-house philosophy into a five-star hotel format in Les Trois Vallées, with butler service, private-chef options and access to two spa complexes.
2024Ultima Quai Wilson GenevaGeneva, Switzerland
Five private full-floor residences in a restored building on the shores of Lake Geneva extend Ultima into serviced urban living. The format offers residential privacy and flexibility while retaining the Collection’s design and hospitality support.
Editorial note — Code and book number checked against the current LHL register. Brand history, collection composition and service model were checked against official Ultima Collection materials; corporate structure and the July 2026 sale of Ultima Corfu against Ultima Capital. Reviewed August 2026. The current English Collection page lists 2 hotels, 6 villas/chalets and 1 residence — 9 properties in 2 countries. No proprietary or third-party guest loyalty programme is stated by Ultima Collection.
⚑ It is a listed property company that behaves like a hotel brand. Byron Baciocchi and Max-Hervé George founded Ultima Capital in 2012, bought the Sport Hotel Rutti in Gstaad, demolished it and raised Ultima Gstaad, opened December 2016. Crans-Montana followed in December 2018 — two chalets taken whole, one with eleven suites — then Megève, Courchevel, Geneva and Corfu. Ultima Capital took the company public in 2019 and trades on the BX Swiss exchange under ULTIMA, holding 46 to 48 residences, chalets, villas and plots across eleven locations, with a gross asset value over CHF 1 bn, a market capitalisation near CHF 560 m and more than 600 staff.
⚑ Which settles a question the Private Residences register raised and could not answer. PR records Ultima as Lease · not offered for ownership and calls the field accurate and uninformative. Both registers are right about different objects. A guest cannot buy the chalet he sleeps in — but the chalets are assets of a listed company, and what is bought and sold is shares in the company that owns them. The Library holds the brand at this code; the buildings belong to Ultima Capital; and the thing actually traded is neither. No other entry in this register separates those three so cleanly.
⚑ Both founders left on the same day, with immediate effect. On 21 December 2023 Ultima announced employment termination agreements with Max-Hervé George, chief executive since October 2019, and Byron Baciocchi, chief operating officer. George’s roughly 33 per cent went to Global Hospitality Securities of Luxembourg, which took a call option over Baciocchi’s 25 per cent. The new chief executive is Petar Krstic, six years with Aman, who had recently opened Aman New York — LHL-021 in this register. Founders out, Aman’s man in, and the company they built from the ground up continuing under its own name.
⚑ A figure this entry declines to carry. One profile values Baciocchi’s November 2023 stake sale at over $1.4 billion. The company’s own release describes Aman New York, in the sentence introducing Krstic, as a $1.4 billion project. The same number, in the same document, attached to a different thing. Against a market capitalisation near CHF 560 m a $1.4 bn price for a 25 per cent stake is not arithmetic the Library can follow, and it is recorded as a published figure that does not reconcile rather than repeated as a fact.
Candour. ⚑ The portfolio is given as 46 and 48 properties across the same week. One trade page states a spa of 1 m² and a plot of 4 m², plainly a stripped thousands separator, and the Library uses neither. ⚑ Not established here: what Ultima Capital is worth now, whether the call option over Baciocchi’s stake was exercised, and how the management company relates to the listed parent. Max-Hervé George and Byron Baciocchi are not in Part IX and on the register’s own test they belong there.
⚑ Sources added September 2026, one of 140 entries the Library’s own audit found published without them.