Austrian Ski Hub Lech Am Arlberg Is a Year-Round Destination

There’s a reason why property is so scarce in this Alpine enclave that’s home to some of the country's most-acclaimed hotels and restaurants.

   29 October 2024

The exclusive resort village of Lech Am Arlberg feels elevated in more ways than one. 

First, the Alpine enclave is home to some of Austria’s most-acclaimed hotels and restaurants. Second, Lech’s altitude is around 1,450 meters (4,740 feet, with skiing that ascends as high as 2,800 meters; many of Austria’s 400 ski resorts are situated much lower. Third, Lech’s property prices dwarf those of nearby villages, with costs as high as €25,000 (about US$27,925) per square meter.

“Lech has become a luxury brand in its own right, like Aspen or Vail in the U.S.,” said Giles Gale, founder of Alpine Property Finders, an Irish-based real estate firm specializing in luxury mountain homes. “It’s also the premier ski destination in Austria, with one of the largest ski areas and highest slopes.” The resort was a favorite spot of Princess Diana’s, who reportedly taught Princes William and Harry to ski there. “It’s not for the one percent. It’s for the 1% of the 1%,” Gale said.

Set in the Bludenz district of Austria’s westernmost Vorarlberg state, Lech has also evolved into a year-round destination, according to Thomas Joyce, the Lech-based co-owner of Pure International, which specializes in ski and beach properties. 

“The great thing about Lech is that there’s no lull period. In Switzerland and France, the third week of January is notoriously quiet. In Lech, the lights are always on,” he said.

The 35-square-mile village has a year-round population of about 1,600, which swells during holiday periods.

Prices

It wouldn’t be a stretch to call Lech homes the “Birkin bags of Austrian real estate”?rarely available, seldom built, and astronomically priced. 

“Most sales happen off-market here, so it’s rare that you’ll see a home listed online or in conventional channels,” Joyce said. 

Price and scarcity aren’t the only hurdles to buying a home in Lech, according to Gale of Alpine Property Finders. “Austria has strict second-home laws. First, you must have an EU passport to buy property.” Non-EU citizens can arrange to purchase property by establishing an EU corporation which buys the home on their behalf, he noted. 

Second, Austria froze permissions for second homes in 2018, “so there’s not a lot of new supply,” Gale said. “And if you do find a designated holiday home for sale, you’re obliged to rent it out when you’re not using it yourself. They don’t want wealthy people buying houses, then leaving them empty 50 weeks of the year.” 

Lech’s average price point hovers from €20,000 to €25,000 per square meter, according to Joyce of Pure International, “making it the region’s jewel in the crown price-wise,” he said. Alternatives include nearby Zurs am Arlberg, where average prices top out at €23,000 per square meter; Steuben, where costs are around €16,000– to €20,000 per square meter; or the larger village of St. Anton, “which has a variety of price points,” he said.

Pure International was marketing a €5.25 million penthouse apartment in the Brunnenhof Residence, a 12-unit, ski-in apartment-hotel with a pool and spa/wellness facilities. For €7.5 million, Joyce’s agency had a six-bedroom chalet in the new Chalech development, a short walk from the center of Lech. The chalet features a private sauna and steam room, four underground parking spaces, and shared access to a pool and wellness facilities.

“A chalet comes around every 18 months,” Gale said. “If you want to buy, you have to start networking with agents, talking to people on the ground in Lech, and be patient.”

Lech Am Arlberg for Non-Skiers

Even if a visitor never sets foot on the slopes, Lech’s wide-ranging?and pricey?food scene would make it memorable. The village has become “the gastronomical center of the Austrian alps,” Gale said. “As it became increasingly upmarket, the Michelin restaurants and chefs have followed, to the extent where it now boasts some of the best Alpine restaurants in Austria.”

Gale favors the Schneggarei, where chef Martin Brandstätter updates traditional Austrian cuisine and serves up casual, contemporary staples like Wagyu beef burgers. “Like a lot of places in Lech, it had been a traditional pub, but it’s totally remodeled and focused on top-end cuisine,” he said.

Chef Markus Gitterle’s rustic-chic Fuxbau is a favorite of Joyce’s; its cerebral menu offers dishes with names like “Falsification of the Tartars”—beef tartare with onions and local chives—along with traditional Austrian desserts like Kaiserschmarrn, a pancake with rum-soaked raisins.

“All of the hotels also have very good kitchens,” Joyce said, including the Murmeli restaurant inside the chalet-like hotel of the same name, where chef Wolfgang Strauss serves haute-cuisine classics and European wines. Other highly rated local spots include the Relais & Châteaux-affiliated Post Lech, an inventive Austrian restaurant inside a wedding-cake-like, five-star hotel; Die Krone wine bar, with its 25,000 bottles; and Café Gotthard inside Hotel Gotthard, with what some consider the region’s best pastries and breads.

Year-round, the Skyspace-Lech sculpture has been a lure since it opened in 2018. Designed by American artist James Turrell, the ovoid underground space is lined in black granite and showcases light shows along with natural light through an oval-shaped opening in its ceiling.

Lech for Skiers

The Arlberg region offers nearly 190 miles of skiing slopes and 125 miles of deep-snow hills. The Ski Arlberg card (from €75 per day) provides access to the 85 ski lifts and ultra-modern cable cars of all five Arlberg municipalities, including St. Anton, Lech, Zürs, St. Christoph and Stuben.

“There is a world-class infrastructure for skiing here,” Joyce said. “The entire region is connected by lift, so you can ski from Lech to St. Anton without taking a car or bus. And we’re talking heated seats, bubble cars, and gondolas, unlike France or other parts of Europe. It makes it very interesting and attractive for Americans who’ve skied elsewhere.”

Lech’s summer season, which usually ends in October, offers golf, fishing and mountain biking, along with aquatic activities at a newly renovated municipal pool in the Lech forest. A network of hiking trails crisscrosses the Arlberg region.

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