WENGEN, Switzerland
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Views From a Chalet
On Swiss National Day, on Aug. 1, when the country celebrates its formation back in 1291, one American couple can usually be found on their balcony, glasses of wine in hand and an American flag fluttering above, as they watch fireworks burst above three villages of the Lauterbrunnen Valley.
“This is a magical place, and we feel fortunate for the opportunity to be here,” said Sandy Hysinger, a former kindergarten teacher. “It’s kind of like living in the middle of Yosemite National Park, but of course you would never be allowed that.”
Sandy and Vaughn Hysinger found their Swiss home eight years ago after considering various Asian and Middle Eastern locations. Mr. Hysinger, who has been an international operations executive for IBM, Toshiba, Motorola and several technology start-ups, discovered Wengen while on a weekend trip to the Alps in the 1980s.
The two say that Wengen provides a quiet and noncommercial ambience contrasting sharply with the vibe in their home in the San Francisco Bay area in Los Altos, Calif. They added that there was no McDonalds or Starbucks in Wengen, much less a highway or high-rise. Visitors and residents alike are required to leave their vehicles at Lauterbrunnen, the regional capital, and take a 15-minute ride on a cog-wheeled train into Wengen, which is almost exclusively limited to pedestrian traffic.
"This is as far away from San Francisco as you can get," said Mr. Hysinger. "It’s two totally different mindsets."
Wengen, which has a year-round population of about 1,000 that swells to 10,000 in the peak ski season and even more during the famed Lauberhorn ski race, lies in the Bernese-Oberland region of the Swiss canton, or state, of Berne. A German dialect is the primary language, but most people also speak French and English.
Mr. and Mrs. Hysinger, who married in 1999 and have children and grandchildren from other marriages, bought their Wengen apartment in mid-2000 after a brief hunt that involved visits to two nearby villages. “We liked the idea of Wengen being carless,” Mrs. Hysinger said, “and there’s just more to do here. There’s a cinema, more places to go out and eat, more hotels and it’s easier to get to since our car is in Lauterbrunnen.”
Their 100-square-meter (1,076-square-foot) apartment is on the third and fourth floors of a traditional Swiss chalet, a wooden structure with a sloping roof and hand-carved details; it’s a five-minute walk from the village center. Sheep and cows graze outside their door in more temperate months, and stacks of cut wood are piled out front. The building has five other units, with Swiss and foreign owners, that the Hysingers say are rarely occupied more than one month a year.
Their unit includes two bedrooms, a sleeping loft, two and a half bathrooms and two balconies, with the one off the master bedroom overlooking the valley. The couple paid 500,000 Swiss francs ($292,000 at the time) for the apartment and spent another 50,000 francs adding a fireplace, updating the electrical system and doing some work on a bedroom and other details. They estimate it is now worth about twice what they paid.
Clare Regez, a Wengen-based real estate agent, says apartment values here range from 8,000 Swiss francs to 15,000 Swiss francs ($7,980 to $14,964) per square meter, or around $725 to $1,360 a square foot, depending on the location, views and construction quality.
Mr. Hysinger considered setting up a hedge to guard against any change in currency values but ultimately decided to take out a franc-based mortgage for half the apartment’s cost, to minimize the risk. As it turned out, the franc has nearly doubled in value against the dollar during their eight years of ownership, giving the Hysingers an added benefit.
The Hysingers became Swiss residents in 2004, but when they bought the apartment they were subject to the Lex-Koller-Friedrich law, which strictly circumscribes real estate purchases by foreigners. Nonresidents can buy only one apartment with a maximum of about 200 square meters of living space, and only in tourist areas, like Wengen, St. Moritz and Davos. In addition, any nonresident who wants to buy must get one of the handful of purchase permits that the Swiss federal government divides among the cantons each year.
Ms. Regez said there were almost always enough permits to go around in Wengen. But in the neighboring canton of Valais, home to Crans Montana and Zermatt, the government temporarily halted new permits last year because of overbuilding, said Paul Sidebottom, the director of Alpine Switzerland, a luxury real estate brokerage based in Valais.
In the decade before the Hysingers bought in Wengen, its real estate values had stagnated. In fact, they paid the same price for the apartment as the prior owner had 10 years before. But in 2000, the local government in Lauterbrunnen changed the regulations to allow 66 percent of the livable space in chalets to be owned by nonresidents, double the previous allowable amount. (Only 37 percent of the Swiss own their own homes, according to Credit Suisse. Ownership rates are among the lowest in Europe.)
The loosened rules helped stimulate the construction and real estate market in Wengen, leading to a period in which property values rose 15 to 20 percent a year.
Last year the local government altered the regulations again to require that half the living space of all new construction be Swiss-owned. That has again put a damper on new construction and sales.
Swiss lawmakers are planning to replace Lex-Koller-Friedrich — and its restrictions on nonresident purchases — with a new law limiting the proportion of vacation homes occupied only a few weeks a year, according to Daniel Peregrina, a partner at Baker & McKenzie law firm in Geneva. But Mr. Peregrina said such a change was unlikely to happen before 2011.
For the Hysingers, the move to Wengen has had few drawbacks, except perhaps when it comes to the variety of cuisine.
"Here, it’s bratwurst and rosti,” said Mr. Hysinger referring to Swiss sausages and fried potatoes. "If you want Mexican, forget it."
Yzerman, Team Canada's GM for the upcoming world championships in Halifax and Quebec City, and Hitchcock, named head coach of the team yesterday, will be searching for willing and able bodies to defend the global title won last year in Moscow.
While the Leafs have missed the playoffs the last two years, the past two world tournaments haven't included a single Toronto player skating for Team Canada, and Fletcher would do well to try to get a few of his players in the mix this spring.
The tournament is a tough, demanding event, and because it's taking place on Canadian soil, will require the players to perform under more pressure than usual. Hockey Canada, meanwhile, has excelled at developing teams able to deliver in the crunch, something Leaf teams have failed to do for years.
"The expectation in Canada is always gold or bust," said Hitchcock yesterday. "We've all learned to live in that atmosphere, and the last 10 years, we've probably thrived in it."
Finally, Hitchcock is an experienced coach with a keen eye for defensive, hard-nosed hockey, and there are more than a few Leaf players who could learn a thing or two about that style.
Nine Leafs ' Matt Stajan, Darcy Tucker, Bryan McCabe, Kyle Wellwood, Ian White, Boyd Devereaux, Dominic Moore, Mark Bell and Andrew Raycroft ' could be candidates. That said, none would be among Team Canada's top choices and only Stajan might be on management's radar.
Last year, however, the team was desperate enough that defenceman Cory Murphy, then playing professionally in Finland, and University of North Dakota forward Jonathan Toews ended up playing at the worlds. This year, Yzerman is expecting more NHLers to be available because the event is in North America and training camp in Quebec City doesn't begin until April 24.
Yzerman said he feels "loyal" to the players from last year's team and as of yesterday, 11 of those players were on teams already eliminated from the playoffs. Tampa Bay sniper Vinny Lecavalier is unlikely but still a possibility, according to Yzerman, and in theory Team Canada may have 22 rosters to choose from by the time camp opens.
"I think every player is somewhat obligated to play if they're available, but every situation is different," said Yzerman. "If a guy just isn't into it, it's best to go a different route."
Having Hitchcock behind the bench, a coach known as a demanding taskmaster unafraid to verbally challenge his players, could make some players think twice about signing up and exposing themselves to a higher level of public scrutiny. McCabe, for example, wilted amidst the heightened expectations of the 2006 Olympics and hasn't been the same player since.
Hitchcock said yesterday he's more attuned to the unique burden on players new to a championship team after seeing the Canadian Olympic team fail badly in 2006 following the capture of gold in Salt Lake City four years earlier.
"We didn't come clean enough about the awesome responsibility the new players felt in '06," said Hitchcock, an assistant under Pat Quinn in Turin. "They were trying to defend a medal they hadn't won. They felt that pressure."
No one's quite sure how this world tournament will play in the Great White North in the middle of the Stanley Cup playoffs. But it will certainly be watched and it will be a hard test for Team Canada after winning three of the last five.
If a Leaf or two was asked to skate for Hitchcock, it could only enhance the future of the Toronto hockey club.