Old Course Hotel, July 2008

Although now seven years old the Millennium wing rooms are still elegant and show little sign of wear. Click to see detail of bedside table.

The original design of the hotel was elegant and timeless, epitomised by the Millennium wing of bedrooms which are stylish from the corridor treatment through to the detailing of the furniture. Public areas too have worn well, with some looking as if they were done quite recently, a tribute to the unknown designers who did the work. Why is it that everyone can tell me irrelevant details about the golf course like who designed the sand pits for the golfers to play in, but no-one appears to know who the interior designers were that created the existing stylish interiors? Hotel designers do have a problem in being recognised for the skills and understanding their profession has. Skills for example, that allow the creation of the reception here that has a classic country house look that doesn’t look dated even now and works visually despite having a concierge desk added inelegantly to one side.

New rooms are bolder in colour than the old with touches of the antique. Click to see a detail similar to that above.

Detail of a new standard room work desk. Notice all the power outlets are below the desk instead of accessibly above it - forcing the guest onto their knees to plug in their laptop/iPod charger etc.. Click to see the whole room larger scale.

Good house and hotel keeping are key contributors to ageing design continuing to carry conviction. The popularity of the traditional library and the pub show how much of a touchstone this classic look is with golfers who come to St. Andrews for golf history and tradition. Interiors like that of the Sands restaurant provide a timeless elegance which some newly designed hotels are unable to match. It always seems strange to me that businessmen who are obsessive about making their businesses profit focussed don't see design as a tool to make their hotel operation similarly profit focussed. It is as if hotel keeping were some kind of game that doesn't require the guest experience thinking through. In their own business they will be customer oriented, but when it comes to the hotel they allow their son to run it or their wife to design it, oblivious to the obstacles this amateur approach will place in the way of efficient operation for the staff and a pleasureable hotel experience for the guest. The Old Course Hotel has been blessed with some very experienced and professional Hotel designers in the past and the award of Hotel of the Year in 2007 shows that perhaps the in-house Kohler team are living up to this tradition.

Old Course Hotel

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