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A charming mansion house steeped in history

The original stately home was built in the centre of Langenthal in around 1870. Various annexes and outbuildings have been added since then to create the listed building complex which occupies the site today. Great sensitivity was shown in the project to transform the buildings into their new incarnation as a hotel, restaurant and seminar business. Historical details abound in every room and every area of Hotel Auberge, blending in beautifully with the simple contemporary furnishings.

History of the building

The businessman Samuel Gottlieb Stettler commissioned the construction of a two-storey mansion in the neoclassical style sometime around 1870. (The project was carried out by Samuel Rudolf Hector Egger, grandfather of the famous architect Hector Egger.)

The mezzanine floor housed a piece goods shop, while the upper floor was used as living quarters. The original plans reveal that the business involved working with and dealing in fabrics.

In 1889 the mansion was expanded to include a storeroom and warehouse annex. The lower lateral wing was used as a storeroom and for stables. The transverse wing, which was raised one floor up, contained sheds and, on the first floor, servants’ quarters.

In 1931 the joint heirs of Samuel G. Stettler carried out extensive refurbishment and building work. An extra floor was added to the mansion and it was provided with a four-sided mansard roof. At the same time the former arbour porch on the north-east side of the building was replaced with a proper annex, giving the mansion more of a neo-baroque appearance. Extensive renovation work was carried out in 1971, primarily inside the building.

For many years the mezzanine floor and part of the annex were rented out. The Patria insurance agency was a long-term tenant, followed by the architect’s firm Blum&Grossenbacher, which occupied the space until the most recent renovations and which also designed and supervised the painstaking conversion of the building into the Auberge hotel and restaurant.

Samuel Gottlieb Stettler (1844-1931) was a successful businessman and politician. He held many different positions, including local councillor, administrator of the savings bank in Langenthal, member of the board of directors of the Wynau power station and the company Carba-Gas AG, and co-founder of the porcelain factory.

Samuel Gottlieb Stettler and his wife Elisabeth (née Galli) had seven children together. The youngest daughter, Emma, who was born in 1885, married Walter Glur, the local doctor in Roggwil. Glur passed away in 1922, the same year in which his daughter Rose-Marie was born. When Rose-Marie was 13 her mother died, too, and she was handed over to the care of her aunt Emma. Her mother’s sister still lived in the “Stettler mansion”, so Rose-Marie moved back into the house in Langenthal where her mother had been born.

Miss Glur, as Rose-Marie was known for the rest of her life, continued living in the mansion house until just a few years before she died, sharing the house for much of that time with her housekeeper Pauline. Rose-Marie Glur always insisted on being addressed as “Miss”. An educated and cultured person, she was an animal and music lover, a skilled violinist, and an enthusiastic traveller. With her blonde hair pinned up and braided, this tall lady was well-known in the town, as was her love of open-top sports cars. In her latter years she developed a passion for buying and selling securities and could spend hours talking about the subject, as her cousin Fritz Stettler recalled.

By 2004 Miss Glur’s health had deteriorated to the point where she had to move to a care home on Lake Zurich. She died there in 2008. She left the lion’s share of her fortune to a charitable foundation set up to support people in need.

This foundation invited the Oberaargau Solidarity Association to present a workplace integration project for people with mental health issues. The project met with the foundation’s approval and it agreed to transfer ownership of the mansion to the Association, allowing it to be converted into a hotel and restaurant.

The renovation work was carried out with great sensitivity in 2010 and 2011 in collaboration with the cantonal office for the conservation of historical monuments. The seminar hotel and restaurant was finally opened in February 2011, providing a springboard and a supportive environment for people with mental health issues to enter the world of work.

The workplace integration programme was consolidated in Hotel Auberge in 2013 thanks to a collective wage agreement with the disability insurance scheme, and it was given professional status thanks to a cooperation agreement with the mental health services department of the Oberaargau regional hospital SRO.

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