Grand Hotel de l’Europe

In the summer of 1909, American railroad magnate Edward Henry Harriman arrived at Bad Gastein’s brand-new Grand Hotel de l’Europe with his wife and entourage. For five weeks, the party occupied 22 rooms on the hotel’s first floor.

They had arrived at just the right moment. Opened on May 29, 1909, the ten-story hotel was among the largest and most modern in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, with telephones, electric lights, running hot and cold water, thermal baths, and elevators. Designed by Matthäus Schlager and built by Angelo Comini for hotelier Viktor Sedlacek, it soon attracted royalty, industrialists, writers, and musicians from across Europe and beyond.

But glory fades faster than radon water evaporates. About sixty years later, the hotel closed when its owners could no longer afford the modernization it needed. After fourteen dormant years, hotelier Reinhardt Tomek brought it back to life, with Liza Minnelli among the stars celebrating its grand return. The revival proved difficult to sustain, and the hotel eventually ceased operating once again.

Today, its ten stories house the Gastein Museum, private residences, a bar, and an event hall. Protected as a historic monument since 1980, the Grand Hotel de l’Europe remains a relic of the era when Bad Gastein was nicknamed the “Monte Carlo of the Alps” – and when one railroad king apparently required 22 rooms.