A little bit of history
In 1916, Mister Theodor Lauber bought the "Sonne" pension after a bankruptcy. He runned it successfully for several years until the age of 63 before selling it to Mr. Ulrich Imboden, from St. Niklaus (VS), as nobody wanted to take it over in his own family.
Mr Imboden was one of the biggest businessmen in the canton (state) of Valais at that time and was also a renowned politician (member of the state Grand Council). He sold the property to Mr. Stanislaus Kronig in 1948 in order to pursue other projects.
First steps for the Kronig family
Zermatt native and long time single, Mr.Stanislaus Kronig firmly believed that money should always be invested in real estate. That's the reason why he bought two years later (1950) the adjacent property from the Zermatter “bourgeoisie” for the sum of CHF 1'200.00. This deal also included the rights to use the Triftbach gorge, located next to the building.
After his death, the legacy was passed on to his close family: his sister Victoria and her brother Wilhelm, who had four daughters: Martha, Pia, Monika and Maria. Maria, married with Mr. Alban Lingg, received the modest pension "Sonne" in heritage.
Shortly before these events, Mr. and Mrs. Lingg had begun the construction of the luxurious "Albana" hotel, located in the Schluhmattstrasse. They saw in the pension "Sonne" an interesting complement for their business and renovated the property adding dormitories. This was the ideal solution for groups and for people with fewer resources. On the following picture, you can see the main building and the annex (both built in 1860) and further a third renovated building. You can notice that the chalets built on the hill above the hotel are still there nowadays.
The Forster-Lingg family
Following those renovations, Ms. Käthy Lingg, the daughter of Alban Lingg and Maria Kronig, took over the management of the hotel "Sonne". Ensuring the commercial part at the beginning, she became the Executive Director following the death of his father in 1974. She married Mr. Leo Forster a year later. Together, they invested substantial sums of money in the company to reach, a few decades later, the 4 star superior category.
The last transition comes in 2012 with the arrival of their two son, Alexander (born in1983) and Fabian (1985) as the fourth generation of the family to take control of the hotel.