Height of luxury: the mountain property market's new advantage

The mountains are a unique luxury destination, with added discretion.

In the latest Residence Report, we explored the future of luxury where value is migrating to less tangible things, including time, privacy and a sense of place. The mountains are where those precious resources come with the territory.

Making the most of precious free time

Nick Davies of Cookson Adventures says his clients are no longer moved by the best suites in exclusive resorts but by people and time: access to insider knowledge, being with family, and making scarce time off count.

The mountain is where that time goes furthest. Cookson’s adventure expeditions involve a helicopter that stops five or six times a day for coffee on a summit, off-piste skiing and lunch on a glacier, before returning to a single base.

A mountain day in this format can achieve more than a week elsewhere. Cookson is also now taking the concept a step further with its “Power Trips”, which compress a fortnight into a long weekend.

For a growing number of clients buying these trips, the mountain home is no longer the escape but the base – the fixed point to which they return at the end of these highly concentrated days.

Mountain property is private but not isolated

Luca Solca, Global Head of Luxury Goods Research at Bernstein, lives in Switzerland and is watching areas of the country transform. “You find rich people from all over the world coming here to be anonymous,” he says.

Davies sees the same pattern reflected in his clients’ choices. One who previously summered in the Mediterranean, where “the paparazzi can find you very easily”, now spends “multiple weeks” in Svalbard, “rotating their guests”. Discretion, he says, “is so important”.

What the mountain can offer

Luxury, then, is time, and removing barriers preventing people from putting it to good use. The mountains deliver both.

Ana Brant, Global Head of Customer Experience at Cain, notes that clients want what she calls authentic sanctuary: homes and buildings that strip away distraction to make room for connection. For developers, she argues, the task is to move beyond gadgetry and become “architects of possibility”, creating spaces where meaningful relationships form naturally.

When compared to great hiking and spectacular views, the fripperies of contemporary luxury – the cold plunge, the red-light therapy, the latest fashionable bar – look like what they are: attempts to manufacture indoors what the mountain and the lake provide outside, for free.

The mountain home that understands this doesn’t compete with its setting. It gets out of the way and gives its owners the one thing they came for: time, together.

Liam Bailey is Global Head of Knight Frank’s Research Department, leading the firm’s global research strategy and overseeing projects across the UK and international markets.