The Fife Arms Hotel

The Fife Arms, a landmark building in the Scottish village of Braemar, has been restored to its former glory as the centre of the community after an extensive four-year programme of regeneration and restoration. The former Victorian coaching inn has long been the heart of Braemar, which hosts the annual Highland Games/ Braemar Gathering in Aberdeenshire. In recent decades however the once-flourishing establishment had declined, not helped by unsympathetic 20th century additions that had compromised its historic character.

The completed project carefully balances the retention and restoration of key existing spaces and historic features, with an intervention that creates distinctive new spaces interwoven with the old, captures new views of the majestic surrounding landscape, and, crucially, allows the hotel to operate in a modern, highly efficient and effective manner.  Poorer quality, later additions have been replaced with crafted new elements in keeping with the spirit of the building and the surrounding conservation area. At the same time, the redesign radically reconfigures the operational plan of the building to comprehensively improve efficiency and ensure that back-of-house functions no longer impinge upon residents or visitors.