The Pines has been a hotel since the 1930s.
We took over in January 1998. At that time The Pines had fallen into decline but this gave us a wonderful opportunity to create a luxurious and opulent setting for those who admire the finer things in life. The intention was to create a home which felt as though it had been in the same family since the 1800s. We brought a considerable number of family portraits and objets d’art with us and these formed the nucleus of our Highland home. We have been collecting ever since and there is never a year goes by without a number of new additions to the collection. The garden scarcely existed and we immediately set about the landscaping…..again bringing many mature plants from other properties. The garden changes by the year and we have at last managed to have colour throughout the year. We acquired a small area of woodland and have sympathetically sculpted it to draw out its natural beauty and have created a haven for wildlife.
In 1998 Discover Britain made us the “Overall Winner in Britain” which came as an incredible surprise as we still had so much to do. The RAC gave us their top award of “Little Gem” in 2000 and repeated this every year to 2004. At their request we then moved over to their hotel scheme and were awarded with a White Ribbon.
|
Sadly, the RAC no longer participates in the grading schemes. Having been a four star hotel with The Scottish Tourist Board we were the first hotel in Grantown to be given their Small Hotel designator.
We retained this until 2007 but decided to reject it that year as we felt very strongly that the criteria of the new Harmonised Scheme were not being uniformly applied by The Scottish Tourist Board and The AA.
This was leading to some discrepancies of as much as two star levels which we feel gives a misleading indication of services to be expected.
Having advised Visit Scotland that we were rejecting their Small Hotel Award we agreed, with reservations, to accept their award of Five Star Guest Accommodation.
We were always a member of The Taste of Scotland in its original form. This became The Best Tastes of Scotland in 2003 and we were awarded three medallions which they describe as “Excellent”. Sadly, it went into liquidation and was followed by Eat Scotland. We did join and were proud to be given their Silver Award but we found little advantage to our business and terminated our membership the same year.
|
