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and
leaving guests with just a king-size bed and a stunning 360-degree view
to admire.
It might seem rudimentary, but setting up the Null Stern hotel room way
up in the mountains actually required a bit of work. A construction
crew, including an excavator, had to first flatten the terrain, before
the bed, nightstands and bed lamps could be installed. I suspect having
them transported through what looks like very rough terrain was no walk
in the park either. So why go through the trouble?
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Null Stern hotel co-founder Daniel Charbonnier says the goal was “to put
the guest at the center of the experience and to focus on the intangible
by reducing everything else to the minimum.” So they skipped building
the walls and roof of the room, as well as the bathroom. That last one
may be a big problem for a lot of people, but Null Stern mentions that
there is a public bathroom available 10 miles down the mountain.
Null Stern is German for “Zero Stars”, so you shouldn’t expect too much,
but this open-air hotel does offer room service. Guests are welcomed by
their very own butler with a drink and a breakfast basket. Throughout
their stay, he will live in a nearby wooden cabin, where he will prepare
their meals, including breakfast in bed.
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Booking a stay at the Null Stern hotel costs 250 Swiss Francs ($260) per
night, which seems outrageously expensive, but hasn’t deterred people
from fully booking it for the whole month of August. The hotel is open
throughout spring and autumn, but owners reserve the right to cancel
reservations at any time due to poor weather.
Interestingly, this is not the world’s first zero-star hotel. That title
goes to an old nuclear bunker in the Swiss town of Tuefen, which Null
Stern inaugurated in 2008. Who knows what they’ll come up with next.
Whatever it is, I bet people will pay big money to stay there.
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For the sake of clarification, Null Stern founders Frank and Patrik
Riklin and business partner Daniel Charbonnier are not actually
hoteliers, but conceptual artists who chose hotels as a form of
expression. That’s not stopping them from charging an arm and a leg for
a night’s stay at their artworks, though.
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