The Hotel Victoria in Rome the History of a Hotel and a Swiss Hotelier Family

The Hotel Victoria in Rome The history of a hotel and a Swiss hotelier family Visitors to the Eternal City can choose from more than 1,000 hotels, and one of these is the Hotel Victoria. This traditional hotel has been putting out the welcome mat for its guests for more than 100 years – and this remarkable history is mainly due to the patience, perseverance and quality awareness of one Swiss family. In today's world it is hard to find large, grand hotels that are still family run and owned. Hotels with a rating of four stars or more with in excess of one hundred rooms are normally owned by global enterprises. This is also true of Rome – but in Rome there are still exceptions, although you can only count them on the fingers of one hand. One exception, one of these family-run, grand hotels in the city, is located directly next to the Aurelian Wall, a stone's throw away from the Villa Borghese. Two minutes walk away to the south west you will find the cosmopolitan Via Veneto, familiar to us all from Fellini's "La dolce vita". When you enter the foyer of the Hotel Victoria, you will notice immediately that something is different – the walls. Throughout the foyer, the bar and restaurant, in all corridors and rooms, the walls of the entire hotel are covered by an impressive collection of paintings dating from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. The manager of a hotel chain would never dream of making his premises a showcase for such works of art. This is not the case with Rolf H. Wirth, the owner of the hotel and the grandson of its founder Gottlieb Heinrich Wirth. Rolf H. Wirth is an art connoisseur and collector. He is both Roman and Swiss, grew up in Rome and is very deeply connected with the Lazio landscape. Guests are greeted discreetly with historical panoramic scenes of Rome and its environs. These relate stories, convey history, embed the viewer in the geographical context, and are ultimately part of the turbulent history of the hotel. This history is closely linked with the Wirth family – a family of hoteliers with a long- standing tradition. Without this history the hotel that visitors experience today would not be conceivable. It could be said that the story begins with Gottlieb David Wirth (1800 - 1839), who was involved in the salt trade until he married the daughter of the landlord of the inn "Zum Hirschen" in Maulach, in Württemberg, Germany, and thereby joined the hospitality business. He was followed by his son Friedrich Wirth (1830 -1885), who was an inn proprietor and beer brewer, and who also worked as a toll collector at the border to Ansbach in Germany, which at the time was very fragmented. The cosmopolitanism of the Wirth family was born with this Friedrich Wirth, as he sent an almost unbelievable brood of eleven children out into the world to educate themselves and find their own way. It would be an exciting and interesting quest to try to trace the lives of all these children. However, in the context of the Hotel Victoria it will suffice to focus on the most successful son. Gottlieb Heinrich Wirth (1858 - 1937) made the best of the freedom that his father had given him and the demands that he made of him, and followed a fairytale career as a hotelier. Life led him to the most renowned hotels in Switzerland and England, back to Germany and from there to Italy, and in 1879 for the first time to Rome. At the time he was only 21 years of age. The first professional focal point of his life was Lucerne and the Bürgenstock Hotel that belonged to the hotel pioneer Franz Josef Bucher, whose daughter Christine he married in 1887. Later Gottlieb Heinrich Wirth became the general director and shareholder of the Bucher-Durrer Association that built, sold and leased several hotels in Europe. The southernmost hotel of the association was the "Semiramis" in Cairo, and the northernmost hotels were opened in Basle, Lucerne and Lugano. Gottlieb Heinrich Wirth then took the helm of the hotel group with the linchpins of Lucerne and Rome, where he first managed the "Minerva" and later the "Quirinale" hotels. Both are still running, but not in a family-oriented hotelier tradition. After difficulties with heirs and his co- shareholders in the Bucher-Durrer Group, Gottlieb Heinrich Wirth left the association and helped his five children to manage or buy their own hotels. Rome and its Wirth hotels In 1921 Gottlieb Heinrich Wirth with his son Oscar and his brother Ernst joined Franz (Francesco) Nistelweck, who was born in Munich, and rented the Eden Hotel in the Via Ludovisi that was founded in 1889. Wirth and Nistelweck subsequently bought the Eden, which was then managed by the young Oscar Wirth. The Eden is also still running, but has belonged to a global group for many years. Three years after buying the Eden, Gottlieb Heinrich Wirth acquired the hotel that is now run by the third generation of the Swiss hotelier family - the Hotel Victoria, built in 1899 as an appartement buildung, then converted to an Hotel by Wirth. Let us briefly return to the Eden, that was managed by Oskar Wirth. From 1938 to 1944 this Oskar Wirth built a hotel above the Spanish Steps that replaced a previously rather insignificant guesthouse, the "Roma e New York". It was completed and named the "Hassler / Villa Medici" just in time to accommodate the staff of the US forces that had just occupied Rome. The Hotel Hassler is therefore the second hotel alongside the Victoria that is owned by the Wirth family. Today it is run by Oscar's son Roberto Wirth. But let's go back to the Hotel Victoria. Gottlieb Heinrich Wirth bought it as a second mainstay for himself and his youngest children Henry Alberto and Lotti. Henry Alberto was only 27 years old when his father died in 1937. He had been appointed as the manager of the hotel three years previously. Although Henry Alberto Wirth had grown up in Italy, in spirit he was still Swiss. This Swiss spirit meant that alongside his everyday work as a hotelier he devoted time to various charitable organisations that promoted the interests of the city and the relations between both countries. For example, after World War II he was the president of the Dono Svizzero (the Swiss association for the reconstruction of Italy), founded the Swiss School in Rome together with his wife Elly, was a co-founder of the APRA (Roman hoteliers' association), acted as the Italian tourism representative in the BIT (Bureau International du Travail, in Geneva) and also as the representative of hoteliers in the Confindustria, the Italian employers' association. The Hotel Victoria in World War II and what happened next The protestant Swiss Wirths were all very open-minded, democratic and liberal. Henry Alberto and Elly Wirth were no exception when they concealed anti-fascists and Jews in their hotel that was occupied by the Germans during the Second World War. This liberal attitude even led them to provide refuge to two young German lieutenants during the withdrawal of the Germans from Rome to save them from mob law. After the War the Hotel Victoria was managed with the same world outlook. It therefore became the Roman home to Russian musicians seeking freedom from communism abroad. The composer, conductor and cellist Mstislaw Rostropovich was one of these. Henry Alberto Wirth learned his profession in the most renowned hotels in Europe, and therefore experienced hotels as centres of cultural activities and interaction between artists and society. Offering travelling musicians a venue to practice and perform and also cultivating relationships with them was a tradition that he wanted to continue. His mother, Alberta Waelly, the second wife of Gottlieb Heinrich Wirth and a hotelier's daughter from the Grand Hotel in Magglingen near Biel, had already brought him up in this way. For this reason he was the long-term president and sponsor of two of Rome's concert organisations, the Coro Polifonico Romano and the Oratorio del Gonfalone. The latter devoted itself to baroque music and staged the Roman debut of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Throughout their lives Henry Alberto Wirth and his wife supported and accommodated musicians whenever possible. The list of just some of the musicians and guests of the Wirth family reads like the who's who of the musical world of the 20th century: Vladimir Ashkenazy , Sergiu Celibidache, Emil Gilels, Walter W. Gieseking, Paul Hindemith, Leonid Kogan, David and Igor Oistrach, Svjatoslav Richter, Rudolf Serkin and Mstislav Rostropovich as well as contemporary living artists such as the Argentinian pianist Martha Argerich or Maestro Theo Loosli. When in Rome these musicians always practised on the grand piano in the private apartment of the Wirth family in the hotel – and still do so today. Today this apartment is frequently occupied by the current owners Rolf H. Wirth and Vera von Falkenstein-Wirth and their families. A stone's throw from the Villa Borghese The hotel was built in 1899 directly behind the Aurelian Wall that protects the hotel from the lively Corso d’Italia. The wonderful Via Veneto is only a few minutes walk away, and many guests choose to walk to the main shopping streets and sights in the historical centre of Rome instead of driving or using public transport. Throughout the entire year the park of the Villa Borghese on the other side of the Aurelian Wall is a source of fresh air for the Victoria.

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