Homes, hotels & restaurants
Clinique Valmont
- Type
- Clinic-hotel
- Address
- Route de Valmont 22, 1823 Glion
Not open to visitors
Perched above Montreux, in Glion, the Clinique Valmont is a high-standing establishment opened in 1905. The first Swiss sanatorium devoted to ailments other than tuberculosis, for more than a century it treated a wealthy and famous clientele before refocusing on neurological and orthopaedic rehabilitation. Its guest book lists dancers and singers, writers, kings and queens.
Clinique Valmont: a century of illustrious guests above the lake
An Art Nouveau sanatorium (1905)
The Clinique Valmont is the work of Dr Henri-Auguste Widmer (1853-1914), a Lausanne native trained under the neurologist Charcot in Paris, Sigmund Freud’s teacher. After opening the “La Colline” clinic in Territet, he had a magnificent Art Nouveau building erected in Glion by the architect Henri Verrey, inaugurated on 4 August 1905. Its tiling and stained glass can still be admired.
Valmont was the first Swiss sanatorium for ailments other than tuberculosis and mental illness. The blend of a unique panorama, luxury hospitality and new therapies at once drew a wealthy clientele from around the world. A passionate art lover, Widmer assembled a collection of more than six hundred works (Degas, Rodin, Monet, Renoir…), now bequeathed to the canton of Vaud.
Dancers, singers and kings
Valmont’s guest book speaks of its bond with the stage. There one meets the great names of dance, the choreographers Maurice Béjart, Roland Petit and Serge Lifar, the tenor Placido Domingo, and the singer Grace Jones. Around them crowd writers and actors: Rainer Maria Rilke, who died here on 29 December 1926, legend has it a poet was “killed by a rose”, a thorn having wounded him, Vladimir Nabokov, Colette, Georges Simenon, Coco Chanel, Charlie Chaplin, Ingrid Bergman and Claudia Cardinale.
The clinic also treated crowned heads and the powerful: King Albert I and Queen Elisabeth of Belgium, friends of Dr Widmer, the Finnish marshal Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, Princess Soraya of Iran and King Michael of Romania. “The most beautiful sunsets in the world, I see them from my balcony” wrote the poet Anna de Noailles from her room hanging over the lake (Swiss Medical Network).
From cure to rehabilitation
During the First World War, Dr Widmer opened his doors to the wounded, notably Belgians, in memory of his friendship with the royal family. After his death in 1939, the establishment became a luxury clinic-hotel, then in the 1970s-1980s the first Swiss clinic entirely devoted to cosmetic surgery.
In 1993 Valmont took a new turn, refocusing on orthopaedic and neurological rehabilitation, its vocation today. The clinic joined the Swiss Medical Network group in 2006 and celebrated its 120th anniversary in 2025.
Related artists :Grace JonesCharlie ChaplinMaurice BéjartRoland Petit