This New, Laid-Back Design Hotel in the Swiss Alps Is a Year-Round Delight

Overseen by the Dutch interior design studio Nicemakers, the open-plan ground floor (or “living room”) is a study in muted mid-century chic, with Jean Gillon lounge chairs, squishy boucle Vitra sofas, and funky, Futurist-inspired abstract paintings curated by Amsterdam’s Bisou Gallery. Design and fashion monographs are artfully stacked on shelves, and there’s an inviting hum of activity as the smartly dressed hotel staff bring out tea to welcome you, or busy themselves with laying the table for dinner service.

The overall effect of all this 1960s high design and efficient Swiss hospitality, however, is totally unintimidating—in part thanks to the intention of its owner, Welsh financier (and hotelier on the side) Grant Maunder, to create an interior that feels firmly rooted in a sense of place, whether the reupholstered antique dining chairs left over by the building’s previous occupant, or the flagstone floors that were fitted by a Welsh stone specialist. (The hotel’s name is even a nod to the famous mountain range in the heart of south Wales.) “With The Brecon we want our guests to feel completely at ease, as if they’re staying in a generous friend’s home rather than at a hotel,” he says—and it’s a feeling that, even just a few months in, they’ve already firmly achieved.