Giessbach Hotel Complex, Heritage hotel complex in Brienz, Switzerland

The Giessbach Hotel Complex is a five-storey palace hotel built by Horace Edouard Davinet, standing about 100 metres above Lake Brienz on a wooded slope. Its pale facade has rows of red-framed windows and red bands between floors; a taller central section rises into a steep dark roof with a slim spire, flanked by matching corner spires. Lower wings with red roofs extend to the right, and a long open terrace runs along the front.

In 1870 the Giessbach domain passed to the French hotelier family Hauser for 900,000 francs. Karl Hauser commissioned Horace Edouard Davinet to plan a five-storey palace hotel, which opened in 1875 after two years of construction. A major fire in 1883 destroyed the upper floors, which were rebuilt immediately. In 1947 Fritz Frey-Fürst bought the property for 190,000 francs and reopened it in 1949 after a total renovation.

The hotel's name comes from the Giessbach stream and its falls, which Pastor Daniel Wyss and school director Johannes Kehrli made accessible in 1822 by building a path to the lake and a bench. The 63-step stone staircase and dry-stone walls laid out by Eduard Schmidlin between 1856 and 1870 can still be walked today.

The hotel sits about 100 metres above Lake Brienz, reachable by road from Brienz toward Axalp or by the Giessbachbahn, opened in 1879, which links the BLS boat station Giessbach See with the hotel. The funicular is the shortest approach; drivers use the Axalp road. The grounds include walking paths and a 63-step stone staircase laid out in the park.

The hotel features a natural swimming pool cleaned through gravel filtration systems that hosts hundreds of newts during spring. These creatures are a sign of the water's purity and ecological balance.