Gigi Kracht, photographed inside Baur au Lac.

It started with a question. The kind that announces itself during quieter seasons, when the children are grown, the house is still, and the daily calendar, once a battlefield of logistics now sits blank.
What now?
In the late 1990s, New York native Gigi Kracht, now living in Zürich. since 1988—found herself in just that pause. She had long made a home at Baur au Lac, the stately five-star hotel owned by her husband, Andrea Kracht, whose family has run the property for six generations. The view was spectacular, the energy however… suspiciously calm. “I was used to buzzing activity,” she says. “New York is like electricity. You don’t realize it’s running through you until it’s gone.”
In an attempt to plug back in, she attempted hosting a series of ladies’ luncheons. “Charming,” she admits. “But that lasted two weeks.” So she turned her focus to writing her own column in Views, the hotel’s magazine, contributing arts coverage in her kitchen w...