The development of Val Gardena all began with the Ustaria dl Baga, now the Grödnerhof. In 1911, sculptor Ferdinand Perathoner (dl Baga) built a villa complete with workshop on one of the meadows of the Vidlonch farm and, just two years later, added a coffee house for aristocratic spa guests.

In the early 1920s, the Demetz-Bernardi family purchased the property and, in the years to follow, the neighbouring “Schattenheim.” The buildings were united, and, over the years, the modest guesthouse transformed to become the five-star Relais & Châteaux Hotel.

Luis Trenker is one of Val Gardena’s most renowned locals. Since 1992, he has been seated on the promenade that bears his name in the form of a bronze sculpture created by Hermann Josef Runggaldier.

In the 1930s Trenker enjoyed career as an actor and director which remains critically acclaimed to this day and, in the post-war years, went on to promote the development of tourism through radio and TV narrations of his memoirs. 

Val Gardena owes its first valley road, which ran from Ponte Gardena to Ortisei and opened in 1856, to Johann Baptist Purger, merchant and mayor of Ortisei. In creating a link between the valley with the wider world, the road brought new opportunities for the sale of Val Gardena products and fostered the emergent tourism industry of the era.
In commemoration of Purger’s prescience and achievement, a wooden statue was erected on the Purger bridge at the entrance to the village in 1921. In the road’s centenary year, this statue was replaced with a bronze sculpture. 

In 1907, altar-maker Josef Höglinger had the Villa Schönblick built beneath the Plajes Hof farm. The villa housed a workshop, rooms for visiting artisans, and a small guesthouse.

In 1926, additional rooms were built in an annex; Höglinger also relocated his workshop to the new premises, replacing its predecessor with a dining room. The Villa Schönblick thus became the Hotel Regina, run by the Höglinger family until its sale and demolition in 2008, after which it was replaced by the Hotel Adler Balance. 

The forebear of the Hotel Stetteneck was a Tyrolean Art Nouveau style building, constructed by Johann Sanoner on the site of the Janon Hof barn in 1913. The building housed apartments, a butcher’s shop, and, for some time, the Imperial and Royal Post Office.

In 1938, the Stetteneck became an annex of the Hotel Adler, while in the Second World War, it was served as the only Dolomite air raid shelter. In 1962, the Stetteneck became a guesthouse and, in 1972, a fully-fledged hotel which is still run as a family business to this day.

In 1906, merchant Giuliani Mahlknecht built a four-floor Art Nouveau style villa on a field of his parents’ Sneton farm, now considered to be an authentic example of turn-of-the-century architecture in Val Gardena. Although he intended to expand the Pension Villa Hohenwart shortly afterwards, the First World War upended his plans, and the guesthouse was used to quarter soldiers. As no compensation was paid out to cover damages at the end of the war Mahlknecht had no option but to sell the building, which to-day houses apartments.

For over two decades, it was possible to take a chairlift up to St. Jakob. The lift ran from today’s Stua Zirm farm up to the meadow below the Jakober Hof farm.

The chairlift, which Robert Höglinger from the Hotel Regina had purchased second-hand, first began running in 1848. In later years, it was converted into a gondola lift, and, in 1960, its ownership was transferred to Hansi Peristi from Banch. The lift was demolished in 1970.

In St. Jakob or, to be precise, from Pertan to the Gasthaus Somont, a small ski lift was also in operation from 1960 to 1969. 

The Ortisei cable car was the first-ever cable car connection to the Alpe di Siusi. From 1935 onwards, its two wooden cabins transported 15 to 16 passengers up to the mountain in just 6 minutes. This cable car laid the ground stones for modern winter tourism, and was followed by further ski lifts on the Alpe di Siusi and on the slopes of Ronc and Vidalonch.

The cable car was expanded for the first time in 1968, while 1999 saw the construction of the gondola lift, capable of transporting 2,200 passengers per hour up to the Alpe di Siusi.

The Val Gardena railway was built in just 5 months in 1915/16, as scheduled by outlines detailing the construction of a supply line for the Dolomite front. The railway ran between Klausen and Plan and, after the war had ended, continued to provide an important link with the Isarco Valley—also for the woodcarvings which were exported all over the world.

Theresia Gruber, known as Tresl da Ulëta, bequeathed Museum Gherdëina a collection of terracotta figurines and ceramic works. Daughter of two artists, and an art teacher herself, she dealt with a variety of materials all her life and was a promoter of the Ladin language back in the 1930s. In 1970, when she was 73 years old, she set up a pottery school in Belém in Brazil.