The Canadian spa resort filled with 3.5 million crystals
This wellness retreat represents the first venture into tourism by Austrian jewellery house Swarovski.
Kur is a concept that doesn’t neatly translate out of Europe, although “wellness” is a start. Within that sphere, however, it can be anything from wallowing in a spa to complete detox, and you don’t necessarily need to take the waters to be regarded as being “in kur”. Just the mental boost of booking a break qualifies, and it can be achieved all over the German-speaking lands, where historic “kursalons” may actually be restaurants, concert halls or even casinos.
To take kur offshore, it helps to have native speakers, which must be why Sparkling Hill spa resort in Canada feels so authentic. It’s the first foray into tourism by Austrian crystal house Swarovski, a far more diversified company than its mainstream product suggests. Not that Sparkling Hill doesn’t sparkle, with about 3.5 million crystals dotted around the place. But the appeal is being in kur in a stunning mountaintop location in the Okanagan Valley wine country of British Columbia.
With 146 guestrooms and three penthouses, Sparkling Hill is built around its spa. While many hotels tuck their wellness spaces into distant corners, here the huge 3700sq m KurSpa is a showpiece, with a welcoming entrance right in the foyer. And it seems every second person is wearing a white bathrobe. Besides being de rigueur for trips to pampering appointments, guests also lounge around in gowns and slippers all over the hotel; they’re positively encouraged at breakfast and lunch.
With milk or mustard baths, maple-sugar body scrubs, honey detox and Canadian glacial-clay wraps, KurSpa will leave no pore unexplored in your quest for personal glow. But I like that community spirit of European spas that Sparkling Hill invokes in its network of steam rooms – including one that summons the kur through crystals – saunas and chill rooms, plus that ritual of Kniepp hydrotherapy where you shuffle through alternately warm and cold foot baths.
The main departure from traditional spa culture is the dress code. Most sauna/steam treatments in Europe are conducted nude, so you’re not basting in sweated-out toxins trapped in towels or togs. Here, North American sensibilities mean they merely offer a clothing-optional European Hour from 9pm, although no one opts in during my evening in the sweat boxes.
Brave types can chance the Cryo Cold Chamber, where you definitely need to be rugged up. It’s similar to an 11-minute ice bath but less painful, says spa manager Tammy, who has pet names for the three chambers. The first, set at minus 15C, is BC (British Columbia), while Winnipeg is minus 63C. You finish, at minus 110C, in Jamaica. Hilarious. “We want all the pores to open and that’s where the magic happens,” Tammy says. Frostbite can develop after five minutes so guests stay no longer than three, and they pump in music to encourage you to keep moving. Not Viennese waltzes, however; in this cold, it’s disco.
Sparkling Hill opened in 2010, the brainchild of Gernot Langes-Swarovski, who had already expanded the family company into wine, aviation and tech. Swarovski’s in-house “crystal architect”, Andreas Altmayer, was apparently given his head and, to be fair, didn’t lose it. You are met by a series of glimmering overhead curtains in the foyer but they don’t distract from an alternative first impression, through triple-height glass, of Okanagan Lake, a glistening fjord fronting an endless horizon of mountains and green dark forest. In the public areas, the crystals are diversely arranged, subtly in the likes of stair rails and dining chair backs, but with more gusto in a wave of glass in the main restaurant ceiling or in maple-leaf shapes in the ballroom chandelier.
The dazzle also filters into the guestrooms. Mine has them in mirrors and doors, but of most interest is a cluster of shards opposite a bath that has pride of place by the room’s panoramic wall of glass. It’s a mystery until, after dark, I find it emitting a soft red glow; it’s Swarovski’s trademark “crystal fireplace”, and with a companion “crystal sky” twinkling in the ceiling, it’s a sparkling way to enjoy a late-evening soak in private. Otherwise the room bears the hallmarks of minimalist European design, with blond wood, white linen and those genius windows that open every which way.
There are more Euro touches on the hospitality side; for instance, beer from Salzburg and Bavaria, with auf wiedersehen printed on the bar docket before I head to dinner in the main restaurant, Peak Fine. Tonight the room is being teased with the last rays of the sun, a finale to its golden show on the lake. Maple-smoked duck breast is matched to a Quails’ Gate chenin blanc, a specialty of this fine central Okanagan winery, followed by lobster orecchiette with ricotta and a Tinhorn Creek merlot from Oliver, the preferred southern end of the valley for reds. I finish with pistachio and lemon cheesecake, another dish that, without being fancy, makes it about the most enjoyable meal I’ve had in Canada.
Sparkling Hill has allowed one full-blown nod towards genuine Austrian-ness. The resort’s second eatery is Gerni’s, in homage to Gernot Langes-Swarovski, who sourced an original 16th-century Tyrol farmhouse and had it re-assembled here log by log, although he died several months before it opened in October 2021. On the menu are schnitzel, goulash, liver dumplings and apfelstrudel, and the Okanagan’s finest oompah band plays occasionally. If you’ve packed dirndls and lederhosen, well and good, because this is the only place in the entire resort where gowns and slippers are strictly verboten.
In the know
Sparkling Hill Resort is 50km north of the Okanagan Valley’s largest city, Kelowna, an hour by air or 400km by road from Vancouver. Rooms are $C420-$C1000 ($470-$1112) a night; guests must be over 16. Rates include valet parking, breakfast and common steam/sauna/pool facilities. The resort partners with plush neighbouring golf resort Predator Ridge, and you’re at the pinot noir and chardonnay end of the Okanagan’s diverse wine country. The Big White and Silver Star ski resorts are each an hour away.
Jeremy Bourke was a guest of Destination Canada and Destination British Columbia.
