If you open a hotel in an extreme location, you’re bound to attract extreme personalities. And when the odds are already stacked against you, the last thing you need are guests with more baggage than luggage. Maybe if Andre Morel (Cyril Metzger) had thought things through, he might have chosen a different path in life – but if he’d done that, then he wouldn’t have been Andre Morel.
It’s the dying days of the 19th Century, and Morel is a man with a dream. It’s not enough for him to run a luxury resort in the Swiss Alps; the mountains are already full of health sanatoriums and spas. He wants to establish the first all-year-round hotel, an oasis of indulgence and fresh air at the top of the world designed to attract the finest clientele from across Europe.
And by finest, he means richest: keeping a massive luxury establishment operating during the depths of winter is not going to be cheap. Enter Lord Fairfax (Simon Ludders), who agrees to finance Morel’s crazy scheme. Now Morel has the money, and he’s found a building – a run down and decaying building, but it’s not like anyone’s going to sell him anything better – and together with his wife Rose (Manon Clavel) and chef Cesar Voclain (Vincent Heneine), he’s got a team to back him up. He’s going to need them.
Across the eight episodes, Winter Palace provides plenty of opportunity to soak in the style and glamour of old-world resort living, seen through the lives of the rich and the ruthless. The costumes are fancy and flashy, the hotel is a stunning setting – once they get it into shape – and the idea of a winter resort is unusual enough to bring in the curious and those seeking thrills. But behind all the polish, this is a series that constantly drives home just how risky an achievement this was.
Form the start the locals are against the idea. Without the locals Morel has no workforce, and a five-star resort isn’t something you can operate with a skeleton staff. After a tragedy early on, half the staff walk out; looks like that skeleton staff option is back on the table.
There’s also the guests. Lord Fairfax didn’t put the money up for the fun of it, as his daughter Lady Isobel (Astrid Roos) is determined to mark her mark on the masculine world of skiing. But climbing mountains is a risky business at the best of times, and when her efforts lead to disaster, she puts at risk both the hotel’s funding and its major selling point. People want to see the majesty of the Alps in winter, not risk their lives going for a walk outside.
Filmed on location in the Swiss Alps, and with a strong focus on historical accuracy – without letting it get in the way of a good story – Winter Palace has been compared to Downton Abbey (with a dash of White Lotus mixed in). While they have the Edwardian upper-classes and their servants in common, Winter Palace strikes out in some new directions.
Part of what sets it apart is the exploration of how the Swiss turned mountain hotels into a global attraction. At a time when skis were made out of wood and ski lifts weren’t dreamed of (if you wanted to come down the mountain, first you had to climb up it), men like Morel – who is based on real-life hotelier Johannes Badrutt, the first to turn a mountain top health resort into a tourist attraction – saw the future and grabbed it with both hands.
So when his dream starts to flounder, it doesn’t take long before Morel is offering crazy deals to keep his guests happy. Which is easier said than done considering the extremely upper-class clientele he’s been attracting. Stuck up actresses, cowboy hat-wearing Texans flush with oil money, snooty British aristocracy and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Henry Pettigrew), creator of Sherlock Holmes, are just some of the people who come through the Winter Palace’s impressive lobby expecting their every whim to be catered to.
While those upstairs are playing their own little games, the downstairs staff are dealing with their own, much more down-to-earth problems. Increasingly the job of managing their problems falls to Rose, while Morel is out front trying to keep the business going – even if that involves risking his own life on the mountains to promote the hotel (did someone say avalanche?).
Though possibly he’s safer half-way up a cliff than in his own hotel. Mysterious disappearances, a possible murder, a love triangle, bankruptcy, rival businessmen sniffing around plotting a takeover, and local villagers more than willing to resort to violence to get the deal they want; it’s all in a day’s work at the Winter Palace.
All episodes of Winter Palace are streaming at SBS On Demand.
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Winter Palace
