Hotel of the Week: Switzerland’s Only Beachfront Resort Has a Surprising Design Philosophy
On the shores of Lake Maggiore, Hotel Eden Roc Ascona challenges the Swiss luxury playbook with bold color, vintage Rivas, and Mediterranean ease
Swiss interior designer and architect Carlo Rampazzi has no patience for sterile luxury. Step inside Selvaggio, his showroom in Ascona, and the point is made clear: vintage Hermès scarves draped over baroque armchairs, kaleidoscopic glassware stacked alongside collectible soaps, and custom furniture that feels plucked from a dream.
Opened in 1974 and still operating as a kind of living mood board, the space is a maximalist manifesto in miniature. That same irreverent ethos courses through Rampazzi’s work at Hotel Eden Roc Ascona, where he transformed Switzerland’s only true beachfront resort into an eccentric hybrid—part dolce vita reverie, part alpine escape. “Luxury isn’t about perfection—it’s about personality,” he says. “This is where the lake, the mountains, and a little bit of madness come to play.”
Built in 1971 and expanded over time into three interconnected wings, Eden Roc remains Ascona’s only hotel with direct beach access, a rarity in a country better known for ski lodges and glacier views. The addition of the Marina building in 2010 introduced nautical accents and a private dock, anchoring the resort in the rhythm of the lake. Unsurprisingly, watersports take center stage: guests can set off on paddleboards, wakeboards, or sailboats, or slip into one of two vintage Riva boats for a more cinematic crossing.
Luxury isn’t about perfection—it’s about personality”
Inside, Rampazzi’s interiors are unapologetically individualist. His self-described maximinimalismobili (maxi-minimalism) style favors pieces with provenance: Murano glass reworked into light sculptures, Italian mahogany recast as millwork, and found materials revived through craftsmanship. “A hotel should dare in ways people wouldn’t at home,” he explains.
That sensibility carries through the 95 rooms and suites, each treated more like a residential vignette than a standard hotel box. Even entry-level doubles stretch nearly 600 square feet, layered with parquet floors, boldly patterned wall coverings, and bespoke pieces that mix textures and tones, such as bouclé armchairs, lacquered consoles, and cane-wrapped headboards. The Panoramic Suites are built for lingering, with glass walls that dissolve into wide-open lake views and terraces designed for actual living. It’s clear the designer never wanted Hotel Eden Roc to look imported. Rather, it had to feel like it belonged to Lake Maggiore. The result is luxury with a conscience, a house of reuse as much as refinement.
Hotel Eden Roc is part of the Tschuggen Collection, the Swiss family-owned group behind alpine flagships in St. Moritz and Arosa. Where those properties envelop guests in winter glamour, Eden Roc opens them to the elements—specifically, Lake Maggiore’s shimmering expanse. The grounds hold more than just views; they safeguard a piece of Ascona’s cultural heritage. Casa Epper, the former home and studio of Expressionist artist Ignaz Epper and his wife Mischa, now functions as a museum, garden, and occasional bocce court. That creative legacy continues through the hotel’s arts programming. “Art Butler” Maddalena Mora curates etching workshops and gallery walks into town, a nod to Ascona’s history as a haven for artists like Hermann Hesse and Wassily Kandinsky. The 22,000-square-foot spa brings that ethos indoors, pairing hydrotherapy with high-altitude science. Treatments draw from the Tschuggen Collection’s Moving Mountains program, which swaps vague wellness for results-driven hikes, precision nutrition, and sleep rituals developed in tandem with a Swiss lab.
Dining, meanwhile, keeps pace with the design language. At the two-Michelin-starred La Brezza, chef Marco Campanella reimagines radishes and short ribs as sculptural compositions plated on Bernardaud porcelain and Mora’s hand-thrown ceramics. La Casetta, set in a former Allied command post, offers a rustic counterpoint with freshwater fish and housemade pastas. The main Eden Roc Restaurant provides a more classic backdrop—clean lines and sweeping lake panoramas—while the Marina Lounge favors a casual Mediterranean rhythm. Throughout, the culinary program echoes Rampazzi’s approach: the table as a continuation of the room, where color, form, and proportion matter just as much as what’s served.
If the Tschuggen Grand in Arosa is the collection’s winter jewel, then Eden Roc is its warm-weather counterpoint. Both bear Rampazzi’s unmistakable imprint, but where the alpine outpost leans into cocooned elegance, Eden Roc throws open the shutters. Balconies spill into the landscape, lake breezes drift through open-plan interiors, and nothing here feels muted when it could sing. In a region where Lake Como tends to steal the spotlight, Ascona offers something refreshingly original. If Rampazzi’s design philosophy could be distilled into a single line, it might be this: life without color is like a bouquet without scent. In a world of grayscale getaways, this one smells like something worth remembering.