Hôtel Les Cygnes: A little story...

           The hôtel Les Cygnes was at the very first a big house from 1894 (the current annexe) below which the grocery and bakery of the Bron Family and the coffee house of the Grande Rive neighborhood were located. A few rooms were rented all year round in a pre-World War I typical guesthouse style; Mr. Bron was giving swimming lessons and took his clients fishing on his boat.

           In 1096 the terraced house (the current hotel) was acquired by the Vittel Company, who set up there the handling, the bottling, and the sending of the mineral water spring Graziella that gushed up just above the house. Because of its insufficient productivity, the water spring, exploited until 1926, was sold with the house to the Bron-Braconnay Family to build a hotel. The architect Jacobi who designed many tourist buildings and villas in Evian (the Bedford Hotel, the Hotel “les Ambassadeurs”…), drew the plan of the future hotel and the extension of the annexe in accordance with a regionalist style in vogue at that time : « the Anglo-Norman Cottage ». The hotel was built first on the emplacement of the former bottling factory, and then the annexe was restructured a few years later.

           The coffee house of the Grande River neighborhood lived on and was very frequented by the young people then (including my own grandfather) notably because of its famous Ping-Pong table. Unfortunately, the former Bron bakery, which had been moved just across the street, closed in 1980. Until the end of the sixties, the Hôtel Les Cygnes was a huge success as well, accommodating a very faithful clientele of spa treatment patients. Movies were shot there and books were written. However, the hotel aged and closed its restaurant and then its doors in 1995.

           After some troubles, the hotel finally reopened on 5th, July 2002. Ever since it has been constantly brought up to date and arranged, in order to give our clientele a modern comfort combined with the charms of the past. Nowadays, the Hôtel Les Cygnes is the last hotel in Evian on the waterfront with its own spring water that tries to preserve the charming atmosphere of hotels and restaurants of the thirties...