13 years
The long way
In 1997 the Sanoner family, owners of the Hotel ADLER in Ortisei, acquired the old Mezdì from the bankruptcy assets of a Genoese real estate company and started plans to renovate.
Their vision included replacing the existing hotel with several smaller wooden buildings, modelled on the old Tyrolean mountain dairy huts, to better blend with the beautiful scenery of the Alpe di Siusi. The plans for the Mezdì triggered a fundamentalist dispute.
Opponents formed citizen action groups; local authorities introduced new regulations – some to facilitate and some to prevent the project – and the media also contributed to the controversy. And so thirteen years passed, until …