The brief, as presented to the architects in the spring of 2019, was approximately four pages long and contained the phrase “restrained but not austere” eleven times. The architects, who had previously worked on a museum in Basel and a private residence in Gstaad that shall not be named, read it carefully, asked two questions — “What year is the stone from?” and “How many people realistically use the boot room at once?” — and proceeded to produce something that the Society considers, with characteristic understatement, acceptable.

The Main Lodge is built on a foundation of Engadin stone quarried from a site three kilometres from the property. This matters less than it sounds and more than most people think. The stone has a particular grey-ochre quality in afternoon light that cannot be replicated with anything imported, and the Society tested four alternatives before accepting the obvious conclusion. Some decisions look like principle. Many of them are just practicality wearing a better coat.

Some decisions look like principle. Many of them are just practicality wearing a better coat.

The central hearth — the one you walk towards upon arrival without quite intending to — measures 2.4 metres wide and burns a combination of apple wood and larch. The apple for fragrance. The larch for heat and longevity. The combination was suggested by the lodge's first head of maintenance, a man of very few words and impeccable instincts, who has since retired to a farmhouse below the valley and is, we understand, perfectly content.

The furniture is a question people ask about. The answer is: some of it was made for the lodge, some of it arrived, and several pieces were acquired under circumstances that the relevant committee has agreed not to document formally. The leather armchairs by the east window are original to a hotel in Davos that closed in 1987. They were reupholstered once, in 1994, and have been left alone since on the correct understanding that things that have survived this long deserve to be allowed to continue.

Visible routers: there are none. This required more structural work than the fireplace. We consider it a worthwhile trade.