The Scherz Family — Ernst → Ernst Andrea → Andrea → Alexandre & Sabrina

1 · The castle above Gstaad

Gstaad Palace opened in 1913, long before the Scherz family owned it. Its turrets and position above the village made the building a destination landmark from the beginning. Andrea Scherz therefore inherited stewardship of an icon whose architectural identity was already inseparable from Gstaad.

2 · The Scherz family arrives

Andrea’s grandparents Ernst and Silvia Scherz took over management of the Palace in 1938. In 1947 Ernst Scherz assembled the capital needed to secure the hotel when its future was uncertain, eventually buying out the other investors. The family story begins with management before ownership.

3 · First generation — Bet everything

The official Palace history records that Ernst Scherz relied on local supporters and investors to acquire the shares, then gradually repaid them and consolidated ownership. Later family accounts describe the commitment in almost existential terms. Independent ownership was built through risk, not inherited effortlessly.

4 · Second generation — Ernst Andrea

Andrea’s father Ernst Andrea Scherz joined the Palace in 1968 and took over as director in 1969. Over roughly three decades he modernized the hotel, reinforced its social position and became an important international hotel-industry leader.

5 · GreenGo

The GreenGo nightclub opened in 1971 and became one of the Palace’s defining social institutions. Its survival across decades demonstrates a Scherz family principle: some spaces acquire cultural value precisely because they are not repeatedly redesigned to follow fashion.

6 · Leading hotels in the family

Ernst Andrea Scherz served for many years as Chairman of The Leading Hotels of the World and helped expand the organization internationally. Andrea later followed the same institutional path. The family’s influence therefore extends beyond one hotel into the independent luxury-hotel ecosystem.

7 · The job was not guaranteed

Andrea has emphasized that his father left him free to choose another profession. This matters to the succession story. Family ownership created an opportunity, not an automatic entitlement to management.

8 · Learn elsewhere first

Before joining the Palace permanently, Andrea trained and worked outside Gstaad, including experience in Hawaii and Sardinia. Like several successful dynastic hoteliers, he returned home with external benchmarks rather than only inherited habits.

9 · 1996 — Start at reception

Andrea officially joined Gstaad Palace in summer 1996 as Chef de Réception. The hotel’s 2026 anniversary materials stress that he earned his stripes at the front desk. The future owner-general manager began where guest expectations become operational reality.

10 · Five years before the top job

Andrea spent roughly five years in the hotel before taking over as General Manager in 2001. That overlap allowed him to work inside the institution while his father’s generation was still present. Succession became apprenticeship rather than event.

11 · 2001 — Take the helm

Andrea became General Manager in 2001 as long-serving director Hansruedi Schaerer retired. The third generation now carried responsibility for a hotel whose staff, guests and rituals stretched back far beyond Andrea’s own career.

12 · The palace as extended family

Andrea describes the Palace through family language that includes guests and employees, not only owners. The hotel’s official philosophy notes that many guests first arrived as children and now return with children and grandchildren of their own.

13 · Repeat guests are the business model

In a 2013 interview Andrea said roughly 80 percent of guests were repeat customers. The exact share can vary by season and year, but the principle is stable: the Palace is built around return rather than one-time discovery. Memory is a commercial asset.

14 · Long-serving staff

The same 2013 interview highlighted employees who had served the Palace for decades. Long staff tenure allows recognition to become personal rather than database-driven. The guest returns not merely to a building but to people who remember how the last visit felt.

15 · An old friend

Andrea has compared the guest relationship with the Palace to visiting an old friend. The metaphor defines the modernization challenge perfectly. An old friend can change clothes, improve health and learn new things; if the personality disappears, continuity is broken.

16 · Invest without breaking recognition

Under Andrea the Palace has continued major physical investment: suites, spa, pools, restaurants, infrastructure and sustainability upgrades. The goal is not preservation by stasis. It is modernization calibrated so that the Palace remains recognizably itself.

17 · 2007 — The spa

The Palace Spa was massively expanded in 2007 into an approximately 1,800-square-metre wellness area. The investment shows that a historic grand alpine hotel cannot rely on history alone. Contemporary luxury expectations require serious new infrastructure.

18 · 2022 — The pool returns

The indoor pool was comprehensively refurbished in 2022 with a new bar linking the wellness area conceptually to the GreenGo world. The project is a useful example of generational layering: contemporary materials around a long-standing Palace ritual.

19 · Walig Hut — Luxury by removal

The Palace’s Walig Hut, an alpine refuge dating from 1783, offers an intentionally stripped-back experience high above the valley. It demonstrates the opposite of grand-hotel luxury: peace, simplicity, landscape and authenticity. The Palace can sell less as more because the grand hotel exists below.

20 · Gstaad, not only the palace

Like his father, Andrea’s role extends into destination stewardship. A seasonal hotel depends on the cultural, sporting and tourism strength of the wider Saanenland. The owner of the landmark cannot treat the village as somebody else’s problem.

21 · Seasonality as discipline

Gstaad Palace remains seasonal rather than forcing year-round operation. Seasonality concentrates intensity: opening, closing, maintaining the building, retaining staff and rebuilding momentum twice a year. The rhythm is a constraint but also part of the house’s identity.

22 · 2008 — LHW leadership

Andrea joined the senior leadership world of The Leading Hotels of the World and later served on its Executive Committee, becoming Vice Chairman and then Chairman effective 2022. His industry role mirrors his father’s and reinforces the Scherz family’s long commitment to independent hotels.

23 · Independence beyond one family

As Chairman of LHW, Andrea represents an ecosystem of independent luxury hotels whose strength comes from individuality rather than uniformity. The institutional role gives his family-hotel philosophy broader significance: independence needs collective distribution and standards without surrendering identity.

24 · What he changed

He converted dynastic succession into professional apprenticeship by returning through the front desk rather than directly into ownership authority. He led continuous investment in wellness, rooms, public spaces and infrastructure while protecting the Palace’s recognizable identity. He made repeat guests, long-serving staff and family presence explicit strategic assets. He extended the Scherz tradition of industry leadership through The Leading Hotels of the World. He has also begun preparing a possible fourth generation without treating family succession as automatic.

26 · Andrea Scherz and Roberto Wirth

Both are later-generation owner-hoteliers of iconic European independent grand hotels. Wirth embodied one Roman house through intensely personal host culture. Scherz works through a broader family system of guests, staff, destination and LHW. Wirth makes the hotel his home. Scherz makes the hotel an extended family.

27 · Andrea Scherz and Antonio Sersale

Both took over family icons after gaining outside hotel experience and while the previous generation was still present. Sersale expands one Positano house through art, retail, wellness and lifestyle layers. Scherz evolves a larger alpine grand hotel through infrastructure, service continuity and institutional leadership. Sersale deepens the address. Scherz strengthens the institution.

28 · Andrea Scherz and the Oetkers

Both models use long-duration family ownership to protect iconic European hospitality assets. Oetker stewardship operates across a selective collection; the Scherz family concentrates its identity in one extraordinary Palace. Oetker builds continuity across houses. Scherz builds generations inside one house.

29 · LHL connections

• Gstaad Palace · Gstaad — defining hospitality institution · opened 1913 · Scherz-managed from 1938 · family-owned since 1947.
• Ernst Scherz — grandfather · first-generation Scherz owner-builder.
• Ernst Andrea Scherz — father · second-generation hotelier and LHW chairman.
• GreenGo — defining Palace nightlife institution · opened 1971.
• Palace Spa — major contemporary wellness infrastructure · expanded 2007.
• Walig Hut — alpine authenticity extension.
• The Leading Hotels of the World — Andrea Scherz, Chairman of Executive Committee.
• Alexandre Scherz · Sabrina Scherz — emerging fourth generation.

30 · Timeline

• 1913Gstaad Palace opens.
• 1938Ernst and Silvia Scherz take over management.
• 1947Ernst Scherz secures ownership; the Palace enters long-term Scherz family control.
• 1968–1969Ernst Andrea Scherz joins and then takes over as director.
• 1971GreenGo nightclub opens.
• 1970s–1980sErnst Andrea Scherz leads both the Palace and The Leading Hotels of the World through a major growth era.
• 1996Andrea Scherz officially joins Gstaad Palace as Chef de Réception after experience in Hawaii and Sardinia.
• 2001becomes General Manager and third-generation leader.
• 2007Palace Spa is massively expanded.
• 2008 onwardAndrea’s LHW leadership role deepens; he later serves as Vice Chairman.
• 2019named Swiss Hotelier of the Year.
• 2021Ernst Andrea Scherz dies; Andrea’s third-generation stewardship continues.
• 2022Andrea becomes Chairman of LHW’s Executive Committee; indoor pool refurbishment completed.
• 2025–2026fourth-generation succession becomes increasingly visible; Andrea celebrates 30 years working officially at the Palace.

31 · LHL story — Start at the Front Desk

Your grandfather risked everything to buy the hotel.

Your father ran it for three decades.

Your surname is already on the story.

That does not make you General Manager.

Come home.

Stand at reception.

Learn the arrivals.

Learn the complaints.

Learn who comes back and why.

Five years later, take the keys.

32 · A second story — The Old Friend

The guest first came as a child.

Now the guest arrives with grandchildren.

The spa is new.

The pool has changed.

The suite is better.

But the waiter remembers the family.

The lobby still feels right.

The Palace has changed enough to remain good and not enough to become a stranger.

That is the renovation brief.

33 · Legacy

Andrea Scherz belongs in the Luxury Hospitality Library because he represents the third-generation family hotelier as professional custodian rather than automatic heir. Gstaad Palace was already an architectural and social icon before he joined it; his grandfather secured family ownership and his father built an extraordinary era of international hotelkeeping. Andrea’s authorship lies in carrying that institution into the twenty-first century without severing its human continuity. He started at reception, took leadership after a period of apprenticeship, invested heavily in contemporary wellness and infrastructure, preserved long-lived institutions such as GreenGo, and kept repeat guests and long-serving staff at the centre of the hotel’s identity. His chairmanship of The Leading Hotels of the World extends the same philosophy beyond Gstaad: independent hotels need scale in distribution and collective strength without sacrificing individuality. The unresolved question is now visible in the fourth generation — whether a family can prepare succession rigorously enough that continuity remains a qualification rather than an entitlement.