Renovating A Scottish Icon: The Gleneagles Hotel

by Susan Kime (RSS feed)
Jun 15th 2010 at 9:02AM

" The Gleneagles Hotel represents more than a great golf location and resort, in many ways it represents the soul of Scotland," said Dorothy Welsh, Gleneagles Director of Sales and Marketing. "That's why it has taken awhile for the renovation of Gleneagles to be completed. It has to be done slowly and carefully, more restoration than renovation – restoring a newer life into an already established icon."

As Ms. Welsh infers, The Gleneagles Hotel is already an iconic golf resort hotel. Set on 859 acres of estate land in Perthshire, Scotland, the hotel opened in 1924, and has been one of the great Scottish golfing destinations for over ½ century. "But a major goal," continues Ms. Welch in a recent interview, "was to expand the vision – making it an even better golf destination as well as a significant luxury resort destination for the 21st century."

The costs for the restoration, renovation and basic redevelopment of the hotel lies excess, as of this writing of £70M, which loosely translates into over $100M. Some of the renovations are to the golf courses, The Kings, The Queens and the Jack Nicklaus designed PGA Centenary Course, where the 2014 Ryder Cup Matches will be played. These renovations are mostly invisible to the eye, as they deal with four seasons playability, green and eco-sensitive components.

But much of the renovation can be seen, as many of the over 200 hotel rooms, and suites, plus the ten top floor Spirit Suites, have been renovated also. The expansion of the kitchens is another, that will make the four already famous restaurants even more accessible to the visitors. One, Andrew Fairlie's is the only two Michelin Star restaurant in Scotland. Fairlie's signature dish is a succulent home-smoked lobster, which involves smoking lobster shells over old whisky barrels for up to 12 hours and roasting them in lime butter.

In addition is a major new spa -- the Spa by ESPA at Gleneagles, was added recently, allowing guests the choice of 22 treatment rooms with over 20,000 sf of new space. The ESPA has already received two U.K. Zest Magazine's inaugural annual readers' Spa Awards. Zest Magazine is the U.K.'s top women's health publication. The ESPA now has a a vitality pool lit by fiber optics, and an extensive menu of therapeutic treatments including Gleneagles' signature treatment, The Source, uses river stones from the fresh waters and hills of Perthshire.

For others who come to Gleneagles, and have an abiding interest, but not a grand passion for Golf, the following activity programs have also been part of the hotel redevelopment and expansion.

Equestrian:
The Gleneagles Equestrian School provides private and group lessons, and has stabling facilities for 43 horses, including 20 available for students and guests.

Falconry:
The British School of Falconry at Gleneagles provides lessons for individuals and families by learning about hawking on the Perthshire moors. There is a new falconry building on the hotel property, part of the hotel expansion and redevelopment.

The Gundog School:
This is the first school of its kind in the world, where, working with the school's own dogs, guests can learn how to handle a trained gundog. This unique school is part of the Scottish heritage where Labradors, Spaniels and other breeds have partnered with field hunters.

Children's Programs at Gleneagles
There are baby care facilities, daily events, falconry, archery, golf and equestrian lessons, and off road driving in new 1/3 size mini-Hummers available for children.

Tags: Andrew Fairlies, Falconry, Gleneagles Hotel, Golf at Gleneagles, golf travel, Jack Nicklaus Centenary Course, scotland, scotland travel, The Centenary Clurse Gleneagles, The Gundog School, The Kings Course Gleneagles, The Queens Course Gleneagles, The Ryder Cup matches 2014

Filed under: Luxury Travel & Hotels, By Design

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Rena Davenport Jun 15th 2010 2:03PM

Exquisite Air Charter is a charter flights company in the U.S. We recently flew a client out to Scotland who stayed at The Gleneagles Hotel. Unfortunately our client wasn't able to enjoy the hotel to its fullest potential, as this was a business trip but he did tell us a little about the hotel and we hear it is top-notch. I hope some of your readers are fortunate enough to enjoy the experience and visit The Gleneagles Hotel.