1 · Position
Jachiam Bütz-Janzun built it in 1658 and it passed through many hands over three and a half centuries. In 1928 there were plans to demolish it, and Hans Badrutt bought it to preserve it. ⚑ The idea of turning the farmhouse into a restaurant was Helen Badrutt's, and it is recorded as one of the defining decisions in the resort's culinary history. Much of the interior was assembled from Hans's own collection of artefacts, and the rustic character was deliberately kept.
2 · The opening
28 December 1935. Lady Sylvia Ashley and Douglas Fairbanks, Prince René of Bourbon-Parma, the banker Harry Morgan, Bob Kane — who created Batman — and the children of Alexander Korda. The former king of Siam and his wife looked in on New Year's Eve. It became the après-ski address almost at once, and kitchens and cellars had to be built onto the east side to cope.
3 · Why it is in the Library
It is the group's clearest instance of a satellite created by preservation rather than by demand. Nobody needed another restaurant in St Moritz in 1928; somebody needed the building not to be knocked down, and the restaurant was what justified keeping it. Ninety years later it is described as the most storied building in St Moritz that is not a hotel — the preservation argument having outlived every commercial one.
4 · Candour
⚑ Dates vary across sources: the purchase is given as 1928 and as 1935–36, and the conversion as 1935 and 1936. The entry follows the hotel's own archive — bought 1928, opened 28 December 1935 — and records the others. Helen Badrutt is credited in the house account and is not in Part IX; on the Library's own §21 rule she should be, and the anchor exists.