The ancestral line of Stoffel entrepreneurs dates back to Hospital Master and Council Franz Xaver Stoffel (1730-1799).

His son Franz Xaver I, born in 1771, together with his two sons Franz Xaver II and Severin ran a silk ribbon-weaving mill in Arbon castle which was part of his estate. Franz Xaver III, son of the prematurely deceased Franz Xaver II established his own textile manufacture in St. Gallen in 1860. It was to be the foundation of an industrial empire, which over the decades rose to worldwide recognition, especially under the guidance of his son Beat.

Beat Stoffel was born on January 24, 1863 in St. Gallen; his place of origin was Arbon and, from 1935, Steinach on Lake Constance.

He attended St. Gallen baccalaureate school (Kantonsschule) and commercial school in Fribourg, and served an apprenticeship at his father's business. After completing his training, he moved to London for several years. Upon returning he joined his father's company and in 1895 assumed its management, aged 32.

Over the following years he gradually expanded the company's product range, adding new fabric types as they came on the market. In 1907, he also moved into manufacturing, taking the decisive step from trade to industry. Exports increased healthily, allowing the company to open branches, first in London (in 1912), then in Berlin (1913). In 1923, following several moves, the company established its headquarters at the prestigious “Haus Washington” on Rosenbergstrasse in St. Gallen.

World War I abruptly put this healthy growth on temporary hold; but immediately after the conflicts had ended, without either the industry or the trade sector showing any signs of recovery yet, Beat Stoffel began adjusting his company to the new circumstances. In 1920 he acquired the renowned Mels spinning and weaving mill and gave it a thorough technical upgrade. Then, between 1923 and 1925, he acquired an interest in Ausrüstanstalt AG Textil Herisau, a textile finishing company, which meant that he was now in control of the entire value chain, from importing the raw materials all the way to sales. He also turned the then-new synthetic fibres, whose popularity quickly grew as a result of the post-war dearth of natural fibres, into a profitable business.

The general economic upturn between 1925 and 1928 benefited the Stoffel Group, too, whose main focus during that period was on exports. The company added new branches in Paris, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Singapore to those already in business in Berlin and London.

In 1930, at the age of 67, Beat Stoffel retired from the company's managing board, handing over the reins to his son Max, born in 1895, who had joined the company as early as in 1914 as an apprentice and had been a member of the managing board since 1919. This change of management happened to coincide with the difficult years of the world economic crisis in the aftermath of the 1929 New York stock market crash. But as it turned out, the company led by Max Stoffel was able to meet even a challenge as monumental as this one – it looks like the son had inherited his father's entrepreneurial talent.

Beat Stoffel passed away on November 2, 1937 and was laid to rest at the cemetery of his place of origin, Steinach on Lake Constance.

The first contact with Arosa was established by Beat Stoffel’s sons, who were hiking up there for the first time in 1912 and enthusiastically reported to their father about the beauty of this mountainous region. In 1919, Beat Stoffel finally visited Arosa himself and was immediately impressed. It was in the same year that he bought a plot of land located above and not far from Kulm Hotel and directly opposite the local heritage museum, which had once served as the town hall, and commissioned a stately residence there, which he named “Huus Stoffel” – Stoffel House.

Stoffel House gallery with historic photos and drawings

To design the building he hired architect and Arosa resident Alfons Rocco, who had earned a name for himself designing five railway station buildings along the Chur-Arosa line opened in 1914. The chalet-style station buildings exist to this day.

Alfons Rocco's architectural style informs many of the houses built during that period in Arosa. He and several other local architects played an important part in Arosa's building-boom years in the 1920s and early 1930s, when the village rose at a tremendous pace from the quiet health resort it had once been to a leading summer and winter sports destination.

At Stoffel House, Beat Stoffel, his wife and his five children would spend the winter months together, and it was also from here that he would manage his company during that period. He actively participated in Arosa's village life, was an appreciated guest at the table of regulars of the “Poststübli” restaurant and quickly became one of the community's important sponsors.

One of his last feats was taking over Weisshorn mountain cabin, located at an elevation of 2657 meters, whose owner had run into financial trouble.

Once again, Alfons Rocco was his architect of choice, creating beautiful Swiss stone pine interiors reminiscent of those at Stoffel House.

In August of 1937 Beat Stoffel, despite being very frail, climbed to the top of the Weisshorn for one last time, before succumbing to his illness in November of the same year.

After Beat Stoffel's death the Stoffel residence still remained in the possession of the family for some years afterwards, but it was gradually abandoned.

When after the Second World War it became clear that none of the Stoffel heirs was interested in taking possession of the house, they agreed to look for a buyer or lessee. An offer was received from two women, Lydia Leonhard from Switzerland and Lavinia Hunter from Scotland; both had met years earlier at a sports event in France and had been close friends ever since.

Their idea was to open a finishing school together, a private school for young women from well-to-do families intended to prepare them for life in upscale society. After the Second World War, a number of such schools started to appear in Switzerland, most of them in French-speaking Switzerland. The ladies Leonhard and Hunter followed this trend and considered the Stoffel House as the right place to realize their project.

They formed the name of the school from the initial letters of the five children of Lavinia Hunter’s brother: BELRI. The school opened in December 1948 and success quickly followed. In 1956 they were able to buy the house, and in 1961 they built a large annex providing enough space for classrooms and accommodation for the students. BELRI was attended by young women from Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, England, Israel, the USA, Thailand, Iran, South Africa as well as Latin America. In its heyday, 40 students and up to 6 teachers resided in the house.

BELRI brochure 50s | BELRI brochure 60s

Miss Leonhard and Miss Hunter as they were addressed – the girls among themselves called them Lili and Ly – managed their boarding school with a firm hand. Lavinia Hunter set the tone and the house rules, and enforced them rigorously. She was seldom open for discussion. Leisure time, in particular excursions to the village, was also governed by strict regulations. The curriculum at BELRI included deportment and etiquette, several languages, stenography, cooking, sewing, dance, music, theatre, art and various sports activities such as tennis and extended hiking tours.

After each fall and winter semester, the BELRI students would go on a tour of Italy, which was meticulously prepared by Miss Leonhard. Lavinia Hunter, who was quite conversant in art history, would prepare the students for excursions to Florence, Rome and Venice. The travellers would also attend concerts and opera performances. And finally, the last semester would take place in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, a gorgeous town on the Côte d’Azur between Menton and Monte Carlo.

During the BELRI boarding house's 20-year existence, important social changes occurred which also affected the students’ behaviour and their state of mind. Whereas the 1950s had been comparatively tranquil, the young ladies being mostly well-behaved and carrying out the instructions they received without acting up, the following decade was marked by the 1968 movement with all of its many aspects. Toward the end of the 1960s, the resulting social changes meant that schools like BELRI were no longer in keeping with the times, became increasingly outdated, and hence the number of students steadily declined.

Interestingly enough, Stoffel House received, two years apart, visits from representatives of both these epochs: The fall of 2018 saw a class reunion of students from the 1967/1968 school year. 13 former students, all in their seventies now and most of whom hadn't seen each other since those times 50 years ago, came together for four days to intensively and extensively reminisce about their time at BELRI and exchange their individual life stories.

Then, in the fall of 2020, Doris Cordero from Zurich, 82 at the time, came to visit as a guest. She had attended Fräulein Leonhard and Miss Hunter's school between 1952 and 1954, describing that period as a very happy and extraordinarily fruitful one. In 1964 she returned, now working as a teacher of English and Spanish, and quickly realized that the mood at the house had considerably shifted. Now there were significantly more girls who were unhappy and found the strict regime hard to bear. Over the years, she has organized two class reunions and still keeps in touch with a few of her former fellow students.

In the spring of 1971, Lydia Leonhard and Lavinia Hunter closed the school. After minor renovations, they relaunched the house as a hotel and opened it for the winter season of the same year under the name BELRI. But whereas, acting as the finishing school's management team, the pair had got along quite nicely, their collaboration in connection with operating a hotel did not work out so well, and the ladies had quite a number of arguments. Lavinia Hunter found it difficult to handle the transition from dealing with female students to dealing with hotel guests, often failing to find the right tone. Ultimately, the private and business separation became unavoidable. As of 1975, Lydia Leonhard had become the sole owner of BELRI, and she once again succeeded in building a business and leading it to success.

After a total of 40 mostly happy years in Arosa, she sold the hotel in 1988. Following a failed eye operation and in poor health, the now 70-year old left Graubünden and moved to a convalescent home in Zurich where she passed away in 2001. Her ashes were put to rest in the Bergkirche cemetery in Arosa. A smart, resourceful and innovative woman found her final resting place here amidst the mountains she had so loved.

The house was then purchased by Peter Kunz, who renovated it from the ground up. But he chose not to run the hotel, leasing the operation to Claudia and Willi Beerli in 1989. The married couple had moved from the Zurich Unterland to Arosa years earlier and fulfilled their shared dream by taking over the house. In 1999 they became the BELRI's owners and managed it with great success for 25 years. In 2014 they decided to sell, and in Matthias Eisenmann-Schubert they found an ideal successor.

Along with two longtime friends, Markus Giger and Christoph Boller, the writer of these lines, he moved to Arosa in the fall of 2014 in order to steer the fortunes of the house from then on.

The triumvirate came about as a result of several coincidences, but over time it has certainly proven the ideal combination. The three men are:

Matthias Eisenmann-Schubert (southern Germany), owner and manager: He came to Zurich several years before starting the Arosa project. Training as a cook, hotel management school in Switzerland. Many years of experience in gastronomy in various countries and on several continents.

Markus Giger (Chur), partner: As a young man he helped out in his parents’ restaurant and hotel in Rheintal, St. Gallen. A graduate of the Belvoirpark School of Hotel Management. Senior positions in large gastronomy enterprises in Zürich and Zug.

Christoph Boller (Zurich highlands), administration: Studies in German literature in Zurich and Berlin. Marketing and PR with music companies. Manager of an international opera and concert conductor. Then a career change to gastronomy.

On December 5, 2014 the trio started their first winter season.

These initial years can be described as a time of renovation and innovation. Although the house was functional when purchased, in some areas it no longer met today’s standards. It also had a great deal of catching up to do in terms of aesthetics.

Over several seasons extensive renovation work was undertaken to give the hotel a new touch of freshness and appeal as a basis for a successful future.

In tandem with the renovations that had become necessary there were also innovations – marketing measures, for example, that help address a new and often more youthful public. The hotel basks in an urban internationality that keeps the house young and is also quite compatible with traditionally oriented visitors. Also, opening the restaurant to external guests, along with giving it a new culinary orientation, has turned out to be a great idea. Likewise the return to the house's original name. In December 2015 the BELRI became the Stoffel again – in memory of its builder Beat Stoffel.

For more than 100 years, the Stoffel House has been a staple of Innerarosa. Starting out as a private residence, it became a girls’ boarding school and then a hotel. All through those decades it has been an open house. Beat Stoffel, the international entrepreneur, often and gladly received guests. During the time that the house was a girls’ boarding school, young ladies from all over the world lived in these rooms. And as a hotel it has accommodated people from all over the world for 50 years. The Stoffel House is a constant in the middle of a world in continuous and ever more rapid change since its builder's lifetime. This constant will hopefully remain with us for a long time to come.

From 1948 to 1971, Haus Stoffel served as a girls' boarding school under the name Belri. You can read more about this in the chapter “The Stoffel House” on this website. On the initiative of former Belri student Lorraine Wooley, a native of London, a class reunion of the 1967/1968 class took place in September 2018.

Lorraine was able to motivate 12 of her former classmates to travel to Arosa again. Most of the women now in their 70s had not seen each other since that time 50 years ago. The women traveled from Germany, England, the USA and even South America and exchanged their memories of the Belri period and the stories of their lives intensively and in detail over four days. Barbara Lienhard met the ladies.

Link to full gallery

The BELRI girls

From 1949 onwards, young women from all over the world traveled to Arosa to receive the final social touches at the Belri girls' boarding school under the strict supervision of Miss Hunter and Miss Leonhard. They were trained in French, English and typing, educated in etiquette and culture, and taught how to cook and make beds as future housewives.

The 35 teenagers who arrived in the mountain village at the back of Schanfigg in September 1968 came from the USA, South America and Europe. They had no eye for the breathtaking mountain panorama or the almost unreal blue autumn sky that awaited them at 1,800 meters. For most of them, the Belri was initially an unloved exile to which they had been banished by their families. “My parents didn’t like my boyfriend and they tried to break up our relationship by going abroad,” Laura remembers with a laugh. The American organized a class reunion to mark the 50th anniversary. 13 former “Belri Girls” arrived, some of them from the other side of the world. There is a lot of laughter in the wood-paneled room of what is now the Stoffel Hotel, which used to be the dining room of the boarding school. The women exchange anecdotes and stories, bring the time they spent together to life again and tell how the shy teenagers soon became a close-knit group.

The days in the girls' boarding school began with a gong, always at 7:15 a.m., struck by Miss Hunter. What followed was a tightly scheduled program of lessons, study time, household chores and sporting activities until the lights had to be turned off again promptly at 10:15 p.m. in the evening. Lydia Leonhard, known to everyone as Miss Leonhard, was the owner and manager of the Belri. Livina Hunter was responsible for the lessons. Although the two “Misses” ran the boarding school very strictly and the students were also guarded by a German shepherd dog, they quickly found loopholes and did what young women want to do: have fun, flirt, dance - and smoke, which of course is strictly forbidden was. “Almost everyone smoked, it was the 60s,” remembers Tina. So they met on one of the balconies to secretly smoke. This led to dangerous situations and panicked firefighting operations in the chalet more than once because the young women dropped their lit cigarettes between the beams to avoid being caught. If “Miss Leonhard” caught one of the students, she would ground her for two weeks. Which meant she had no free time in the afternoon. Although Miss Hunter's interpretation of leisure didn't have much to do with freedom. Every day she divided her students into groups and decided who was allowed to do what: a walk into the village, playing tennis or skiing in the winter.

Skiing was particularly popular among young women because the ski lift proved to be extremely suitable for short flirtations: “We always lined up so cleverly that we could share the bar with a male skier,” says the Englishwoman Lorraine. There were also always opportunities for a quick kiss with one of the local mountain railway employees. The main thing was that all the students were back at the boarding school by 4:30 p.m. – just in time for tea time. The Scottish Miss Hunter also considered this British tradition to be indispensable in the Swiss mountains.

Since cooking and baking were among the skills that a young lady had to have in order to find a good match in the 1960s, the “Belri Girls” were also trained in the kitchen. “For example, we learned to bake a Swiss roll,” remembers Tina, an Englishwoman. “We were only allowed to use the English daily newspaper Times to roll the sponge cake, as its printing ink never transferred to the cake.

From time to time a visit to the cinema was permitted in the village - provided the film survived Miss Hunter's censorship and was shown in French, the language of instruction at Belri. The students liked to use the darkness of the cinema to sneak secretly into the lower floor, where the Kursaal's dance hall was located. And when dancing to the music of the Beatles or the Sauterelles, their miniskirts rode dangerously towards their hips. At the boarding school, the teacher checked the distance between the knees and the hem of the skirt using a measuring stick.

The only stupid thing was when an employee of the Homberger photo shop was dancing. The next day, the pictures taken were hanging in the window of the shop that the two “misses” passed by on their dog walks. “Then there was real trouble,” says Jenny, “both of them could be very dictatorial. We still had fun.”

When asked what they learned during their time at Belri, the now almost 70-year-old women answered: tolerance and cosmopolitanism. The year spent together with the young women from a wide variety of countries broadened their horizons for the rest of their lives. And although many of the courses taught were old-fashioned even for the time, the months in Arosa helped them mature into self-sufficient and independent women. And so, for example, Laura traveled back to the USA after the end of the school year and married her boyfriend - against her parents' wishes. “We’re still married,” she says, laughing.