Alpina Dolomites

A Crack in the Rock at Eighteen Hundred Metres

Compatsch is the entrance to the Alpe di Siusi, and at roughly 1,860 metres it is already above most of the hotels in the Dolomites. Alpina Dolomites sits here, near the top station of the cableway that comes up from Siusi, and it makes its argument at the door: the entrance is cut like a crevice, quartzite and wood outside, light and open inside. The plateau begins where the building stops. In winter that means skis; in summer it means fifty-six square kilometres of meadow with the Sassolungo group on one side and the Sciliar on the other.

Why It Works

The plateau is closed to through traffic during the day, which is the fact that decides everything else. Visitors arrive by cable car, walk or ski, and leave in the late afternoon, so an evening at Compatsch is quiet in a way that a valley resort never is. Staying up here converts the busiest meadow in the Dolomites into a private one for half of every day. The house is built for that: it is a five-star hotel with the service standards of an international group and the manner of a South Tyrolean mountain house, and it does not pretend the mountain is scenery.

Why This Location

The Alpe di Siusi runs from about 1,680 to 2,350 metres, a rolling pasture rather than a slope, which is why the walking here suits people who do not want a scramble. The Sciliar massif closes the southern edge and rises to 2,563 metres at Monte Pez; the Sassolungo group stands to the east. The southern part of the plateau lies inside the Sciliar-Catinaccio nature park, within the UNESCO Dolomites. Cable cars climb from Siusi and from Ortisei. The road is open only early in the morning and after five in the afternoon, and a guest permit is what gets a car up.

Fast Facts

• Price: €€€€

• Vibe: High-altitude, contemporary, remote, five-star

• Rooms: Rooms and suites in a contemporary building of quartzite and wood, planned around light and the plateau view

• Best For: Couples, skiers, walkers who want altitude without a climb

• Our Favorite Thing About the Hotel: The evening, when the road closes behind the last visitors and the meadow belongs to the few who stayed

• Dining: Trattoria dell Alpe for Italian cooking and Alpina Chalet Grill for the fire, both on site

• Amenities: COMO Shambhala wellness, spa and treatments, fitness, pools and saunas, ski access from the door, guest transit permit for the restricted road

• Attractions: The Alpe di Siusi meadow, the Sciliar massif and Monte Pez, the Sassolungo group, the Sciliar-Catinaccio nature park, the cableways from Siusi and Ortisei

Quartzite, Wood and a Great Deal of Light

The building answers the plateau rather than the postcard. Its cladding takes quartzite and wood, the two materials the ground here actually produces, and the entrance is shaped as a fissure rather than a porch, so that arriving feels like going into the mountain instead of into a lobby. Inside, the plan turns almost everything toward glass. At this altitude the light does a great deal of the decorating, and the house has had the sense to let it.

COMO Shambhala, Above the Tree Line

The wellness follows the group Shambhala programme, which is built around treatments and a way of eating rather than around a list of machines, and it lands well at nearly nineteen hundred metres, where the air is thinner and the sleep is better. Spa, pools and saunas occupy the quiet end of the building. After a day on the meadow this is where the hotel earns the tariff.

A Trattoria and a Grill, and Nowhere Else to Go

Two restaurants share the house: Trattoria dell Alpe for Italian cooking of the unfussy kind, and the Alpina Chalet Grill, which does what its name promises over fire. Given that the road down closes for the day, the fact that both are good is not a detail. Dinner is where you are, so the kitchen has had to be serious about it.