This enchanting villa, built in 1984 and renovated in 2017, offers 540 sqm of luxurious living space on a 2,000 sqm garden plot. It features an impressive atrium leading to an open living and dining area, a classic-style kitchen, and four en-suite bedrooms.
The wellness area includes a hot tub, sauna, and ice bath. Additional amenities are a wine cellar, a cheese and salami pantry, a laundry room, and a two-car garage.
Located at the edge of S-chanf, a charming village 20 minutes from St. Moritz and near the Zuoz ski area, this villa captures sunlight from dawn to dusk. Its unique architecture and detailed interiors create a fairy-tale ambiance, perfect for a family home in the Engadine region.
Square Size: 540 sqm
Land Size: 2,000 sqm
Bedrooms: 4 en-suite
Bathrooms: 4
Garage Size: 2 cars
Year Built: 1984
Year Renovated: 2017
Accommodation: Furnished
Kitchen: Classic-style with modern appliances
Living Area: Open space with salone, cigar & whisky room, and dining area
Wellness Area: Hot tub, sauna, ice bath
It looks like a fairytale castle. An assemblage of differently sized volumes, a dynamic succession of roofs at varying heights, a polygonal turret jutting out from the facade’s profile and interlocking its various levels, and a pinkish-red exterior adorned with fantastic and animalistic sgraffito motifs. Framing and isolating it in its enchantment is a romantic garden planted with native species. Its charm holds up well against the significant Engadine patrician house from the 1600s that stands beside it.
We are on the outskirts of S-chanf, a village of 700 inhabitants on the banks of the Inn River, twenty minutes by car from St. Moritz and less than thirty by train, a couple of kilometers from the Zuoz ski area. Oriented magnificently on the northeast-southwest axis to enjoy sunlight from dawn to dusk, this villa fits perfectly with the picturesque, almost fairytale-like nature of the village, the mystical echo of its late-Gothic reformed church with its slender bell tower, and the timeless charm of its perfectly preserved historic buildings, some of which have been gracefully restored to house famous art galleries.
The building itself, however, is not ancient, dating back to 1984. It is the result of the dreams and desires of a wealthy gentleman from Munich and the project of an imaginative architect well-versed in the construction culture of the Upper Engadine. Upon the death of the German owner, the property was acquired by a young Italian-Swiss couple with two children, who, with great taste – particularly the lady who is an interior designer – reimagined its interiors, pursuing a principle of harmony despite the diverse styles and moods characterizing the various rooms that make up the villa’s 540 square meters.
Crossing the threshold, one is greeted with great astonishment: an expansive double-height hall with a spectacular chandelier composed of three tiers of lights tapering upwards, resembling a Christmas tree. From this atrium, designed to evoke a fairytale emotion and enriched with a precious early 18th-century Engadine chest and a bear skin – a sort of signature of the first owner who was an avid hunter – four doors lead to as many rooms. To the right of the entrance, a door leads to the sleek gray kitchen, interpreted in classic forms and equipped with modern appliances. This space connects rationally to the dining room, characterized by an unexpected and charming barrel vault clad in wooden planks and beams, an antique valley cabinet decorated with architectural reliefs, and a set of baroque-style armchairs arranged around a table with a polished black stone top.
The second door of the vestibule opens onto the large living room, which, with its adjoining dining area, forms a continuous open space. The furnishings boast generous spacing, with contemporary sofas and a handcrafted bench creating a conversation corner centered around a designer fireplace with a masonry hood adorned with a powerful deer skull complete with antlers. On one wall, there is a beautiful 19th-century blond wood cabinet with a curved profile, while on the southern side, the room extends towards the garden, internally with a delightful oriel – part of the mentioned turret – used as a small lounge for playing cards or chess; and externally with a large semi-covered terrace intended for social events and barbecues (it is also connected to the dining area).
On the opposite side, the living room continues with the cigar & whisky room, accessed through a transparent glass door operable by an extraordinary metal handle-lock engraved with intricate designs, a testament to high craftsmanship. This room can also be accessed from the vestibule via the third of the four doors. This leisure room, which further extends into a large terrace beyond a sliding glass door, is truly a marvel, a feat of prestidigitation: the ceiling is lined with molded wooden panels with a carved rosette in the center; the walls are clad in elegant wood paneling interrupted at the corners by arched display cases showcasing exquisitely crafted spirits. The lighting is indirect and discreet, concealed in moldings running along the entire perimeter of the ceiling, while a large hidden TV is tucked behind a panel of the woodwork. Every detail and the whole are designed to evoke the cozy atmosphere and welcoming forms of the stube of the region’s patrician houses.
The fourth door of the entrance opens onto a short corridor with another bedroom, the garage door for two cars, and a staircase descending to the house’s wellness area at garden level. Here, one finds a cinema room with extremely comfortable bean bag sofas oriented towards the large screen, a professional wine cellar with a floor of smooth oval pebbles that favor the establishment of a microclimate suitable for the finest nectars from around the world, and finally, in line with this room, the naturally refrigerated pantry for cheeses and cured meats. From the home cinema, one also accesses the true wellness area, offering a large hot tub, sauna, an ice bath believed to boost the immune system, and a relaxation area, osmotically connected to the garden’s nature by a large window.
The sleeping area occupies the upper floor. It is reached from the atrium via an imposing yet slender curved staircase, halfway up which, on the left, a sort of fairytale secret door reveals a children’s room with pervasive horizontal wooden planks and its own bathroom. At the top of the stairs are two more en suite bedrooms with panoramic views, facing south towards the Inn and the pristine mountains of the Swiss National Park. Particularly impressive is the master bedroom, featuring an essential canopy bed, refined animalistic design pieces by Lalanne, a spacious closet, and a bright bay window crowned by a meticulously crafted wooden sunburst. A quick flight of stairs leads from here to a cozy loft equipped as a study. Remarkable in continuity with the room is the large bathroom with ceramic stone-effect cladding and a very generous shower tray.
Each room has its own atmosphere, exhibiting a different mood to create continuous surprise effects, yet the house exudes a profound, reassuring sense of stylistic unity, perfect proportions, and aesthetic harmony, undoubtedly contributed by the ubiquitous blond oak plank flooring. The radiant heating is therefore invisible, as are the technical systems refurbished during the 2017 renovation completed in record time, just six months. The fairytale sentiment inside the villa is also reflected outside, in the small park (2,000 square meters) surrounding it. Among the dense tangle of conifers, which screen the building from view, and the colorful flowering surfaces, there is also a treehouse with wooden partitions and furnished to be habitable. A small, grand gift for the owners’ children. This modern mountain villa, deeply rooted in Engadine tradition, can be described as fantastic, considering its sui generis architecture, the comfortable, refined beauty and practicality of its interiors, and its spacious yet intimate dimensions. A property that in every aspect conveys ease, luxury, and well-being, ideal for a family wishing to stay in the Engadine not for a fleeting holiday but for extended periods.