The second life of the house

The current story at Üja, reported by htr on 9 October, is stewardship. Simona Eicher and Claudio Fehr took over Scuol’s former Gasthaus Traube in April 2025. This is a fresh account of an established change, rather than an announcement of a new opening.

The operator describes an eleven-room house with shared corners and a self-service café, but no spa or sauna. Its appeal is the scale: a guest looking for a small hotel with places to sit beyond the bedroom has a clear reason to enquire. Someone hoping to spend a wet afternoon inside a wellness complex should choose differently.

The room categories also deserve attention. Private bathrooms are standard, but layouts vary within a category. Decide first how much sitting space matters, then ask for the proposed room’s particulars. An appealing photograph of one room is not a promise of that exact room.

In Pontresina, Engadinerhof’s new hosts, Nina Lang-Esche and Pascal Esche, have approached a larger historic house through renovation. The M Comfort category is the useful starting point: it is explicitly renovated, with a sitting area. Choose the category deliberately; the hotel’s historic identity does not mean every room has the same finish.

Üja makes the stronger case for a small-house stay in Scuol; Engadinerhof offers a more specific room choice within Pontresina’s hotel tradition. Both reward a conversation about the room itself. Neither is presented here as a newly opened 2026 hotel.