What you don’t expect to find is a spanking new $95 million Swiss-style Midway resort nestled at the base of the Wasatch Mountain range near Soldier Hollow, potentially generating up to 450 jobs and $2.7 million in projected annual room and sales-tax revenues.

Since opening its doors in June, the 370,000-square-foot resort, spa and conference center — which resembles a quaint Alpine village with its Oberammergau-inspired wood carvings, frescos and stained glass — has hosted business meetings for more than 80 groups including Neways, Nu Skin Enterprises and Corporate Alliance, and received more than 1,000 tourists. To date, the resort has hired 200 employees, mostly in information technology and the service industry, including managers, food and beverage and sales.

Investment potential

“It has taken 11 years to get to this point,” Orem developer and Zermatt majority owner Robert Fuller said at the resort’s grand opening Wednesday. “The local community has embraced our concept, and we’ve been very successful in penetrating the market in terms of company meetings and attracting real estate owners.”

The resort includes Hotel der Baer, a 226-room Swiss chalet, and Chateau Villas, a 126 one-, two- and three-bedroom condominium development. More than 50 percent of Chateau Villas’s units have been sold so far, said Andy Dolce, founder and chairman of Montvale, N.J.-based Dolce International, which manages Zermatt and 22 other hotels and conference centers globally. The condominiums range between 500 square feet and 1,600 square feet and cost between $250,000 and $1 million.

“We’re hoping to make Zermatt comparable to the Broadmoor, Arizona Biltmore, Boca Raton Resort and Greenbriar, all five star resorts,” he said amid the sounds of Alpen horns played at Wednesday’s ribbon cutting.

Resort visitors Jeremiah Cahill, 75, and his wife, Lela, 70, of Salt Lake City, purchased a 1,000-square-foot, one-bedroom unit at Chateau Villas for $405,000.

“We bought it as an investment. The property management company leases our unit to other hotel guests or conventioneers when we aren’t using it, and we get 50 percent of the rental income,” he said.

Depending on seasonality, the rental prices can range between $175 and $300 a night, Dolce said.

“We like the mountains and the area, because we don’t have to travel far for a holiday,” said Lela, 70. “If you’re a skier, you can get a free shuttle to any of the nearby resorts like Deer Valley.”

Zermatt’s history

Fuller’s family founded Schneitter’s Hot Pots in 1886, which was acquired in 1953 by Tom Whitaker’s family, who later renamed it Homestead, a neighboring resort in Midway. Whitaker is now one of seven Zermatt co-owners.

“Bob Fuller started buying land in Midway 11 years ago. He also developed Swiss Oaks, a condominium project behind Zermatt in the ’80s. Because he was successful with that, he decided to build a resort in Midway. To recreate the Swiss look, he visited small towns in Austria, Germany and Switzerland,” Whitaker said. “Dolce requires their hotel properties to be located within an hour of Salt Lake International Airport and our Midway location meets their requirement. We also have access to a lot of outdoor recreation activities like hot air ballooning, mountaineering, skiing, ice fishing, hiking, biking, etc.”

Throughout the resort, the Alpine theme can be found in the whimsical folk art design of its interior decor to the woodcut paintings and sculpture of William Tell and the infamous apple adorning the main fireplace of the lobby. The resort has several hot springs and also features a 17,000-square-foot wellness center that includes The Spa at Zermatt, an indoor and outdoor pool and gym. It has two upscale dining establishments — Schneitter’s, a 250-seat Alpine cuisine buffet restaurant, and Matty’s Bistro, a Mediterranean tapas bar, and Backerei and Eis, a bakery and gelato shop.

Conference center

As one of three International Association of Conference Center-certified resorts in the state, Zermatt is now negotiating financing for its second conference center comprising 14,000 square feet of meeting space, a ballroom and a three-lane bowling alley. The resort’s Matterhorn Conference Center currently offers more than 41,000 square feet of space, including 23 meeting rooms, four hospitality suites and can host groups of between four people and 1,400. The 13,000-square-foot Bernese Exhibit/Sports center also can be used for trade shows and special events.

Matt Durazzani of Utah.com, a Provo-based online marketing service, said the company began marketing the resort’s conference center and spa services a year and a half ago. “There’s worldwide interest in the Utah resort because Zermatt is an international name and a well-developed name in the East Coast. There’s also a lot of interest from Utah County businesses to hold corporate events there,” he said at Wednesday’s festivities.

“Our meeting rooms are typically used for board and management meetings, incentive meetings, product launches and training and senior management education,” Dolce said. “The average spent per conference guest at Zermatt is about $350-$400 a day. Our closest rival in that niche are Cliff Lodge in Snowbird.”

Business meetings and corporate events make up more than 70 percent of Zermatt’s revenues, while its leisure hospitality business makes up the remainder.

“We have sales teams throughout the U.S. and Europe that sell the Zermatt brand. We spend over $2 million in sales and marketing a year. And 60-70 percent of our customers will be from the Mountainwest region, and the remainder from nationwide and worldwide,” Dolce said.

Ken Daugherty, Dolce’s regional area director, said the resort will work in partnership with Homestead to bring more marketing dollars for Park City and Midway. “We’re a different product from Homestead, which is a country inn. Our rooms are like hotel suites as opposed to multiple cottages.”

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A1.