Rooms
Four kinds, named for the side of the house they face. The lake side gets the evening light; the slope side gets the quiet.
Compare the four
Sils Maria, Upper Engadin, 1,803 m
Trail & Sensor
A post house of 1883 on the Maloja road, now twenty-six rooms, a stone-pine dining room and a weather mast on the roof that still sends its readings every ten minutes.
Where the trail starts
The cross-country trail to Val Fex begins where the front steps meet the meadow, and in summer the same line is a footpath. That's half of the name. The other half is up on the ridge: a small mast of instruments that has logged snow, wind and temperature here since 1931, first by hand and now by wire.
Inside, twenty-six rooms share three floors, from the hall up under the roof. There's a dining room panelled in arolla pine and a bar named after the snow gauge. Downstairs you'll find a warm room for after the lake, and a casino in the long cellar where the post sledges were kept.
The Stüva
Arolla pine on every wall and two sittings a night. Capuns on Thursdays, because that's when the chard comes up from Bregaglia.
What the kitchen does
The warm room
A wood-fired sauna, a cold plunge and six loungers in a dim room with nothing on the walls.
How the evening goes
Snow in the log
On 2 March 1951 the mast measured 212 cm of settled snow on the meadow, still the house record. An ordinary February sits between 70 and 110. Today's figure goes up on the chalkboard in the bar at five.
Two lakes and a side valley
Lake Sils is four minutes from the door across the meadow, Lake Silvaplana a little further down the valley. Val Fex runs south from the village church and has no cars in it at all.
In winter the valley belongs to cross-country skiers and a horse-drawn carriage that goes up twice a day. In summer it's walkers, cows and the odd botanist on their knees.
- Altitude
- 1,803 m at the front door.
- Lake Sils
- Frozen most years from January to March.
- Post bus from St. Moritz
- About twenty minutes.
- Casino evenings
- Wednesday to Sunday, 20:00 to 01:00.
The casino is the old sledge shed
Until 1961 the sledges for the Maloja winter post were kept in the cellar under the dining room. It's now The Sensor Room, a casino of seven tables that opens five evenings a week, Wednesday to Sunday.
From the desk it's one flight down the stone stair and thirty-five steps along the cellar passage, every one of them indoors. Someone stands at the casino door whenever it's open, and everyone shows a passport or identity card on the way in, from 18 up.
From the house and the hill
Eight frames here and the rest on the pictures page.
Fex side room with a larch headboard, a grey wall and a writing chair 
A drink poured from a brass shaker at the bar counter 
Bathroom lined in pale timber with two basins on one long shelf 
Wine glasses and folded napkins laid for the second sitting 
The lounge off the hall, a sofa and an open book on the low table 
A breakfast tray of yoghurt, granola and orange juice on the duvet 
White chairs set round a table in the upper hall 
Corner room bed made up with navy striped pillows and a lamp behind
Play at Trail & Sensor happens in one cellar room and nowhere else. The Sensor Room takes no bets online, keeps no player accounts and moves no money through this website.