Stanglwirt owner celebrates 80th birthday with 200 guests

Balthasar Hauser, better known as the Stanglwirt, celebrated his 80th birthday with around 200 invited guests on Saturday evening, ORF reported. Family members and prominent figures from politics and business attended the celebration at the Stanglwirt inn and hotel.

Hauser said he still primarily considered himself a farmer. He described the close connection between farming and hospitality as part of the traditional business’s identity.

Hauser said he did not feel 80, but rather 60. Over the past 50 years, he transformed the Gasthof Stangl from a small inn and horse-changing stop into one of Austria’s most successful hotel businesses.

From seven bedrooms to a bio hotel

Hauser took over the roughly 400-year-old inn in Going, at the Wilden Kaiser, when he was 17 after his mother died unexpectedly. He said he would have preferred to focus on farming at the time.

The business has since grown from seven bedrooms into a bio hotel with nearly 300 employees and annual revenue of around 55 million euros. It is now among the highest-revenue hotel businesses in Tyrol and Austria.

Among the birthday guests were Tyrol Governor Anton Mattle, former European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and musician Gerry Friedle, known as DJ Oetzi. Juncker conducted the Going brass band, while Patrick Knapp-Schwarzenegger, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s nephew, attended with his family.

Farming and music

Hauser said farming and music had always been his two main passions. He incorporated both into the business, including with a restaurant dining room where guests can look directly into the cowshed through a glass wall.

Music also features in regular singers’ gatherings with participants from across the Alpine region. Alongside the annual White Sausage Party, the gatherings are one of the Stanglwirt’s two regular yearly events. Hauser still plays the tenor horn and sings, and joined in the G’stanzln performed for him at the celebration.