Every Easter, my father-in-law would hide chocolate eggs around the house for his children to find. He’d forget where he’d put them and his son – now my husband – and siblings would still be discovering eggs in summer.
When it comes to treasure hunts, Ardbeg House is made in the same vein. In each of the 12 bedrooms of the newly renovated former Islay Hotel in Port Ellen are hidden miniatures of the house whisky, a bottling called Homecoming only available to visitors of the hotel and distillery. Some are so well disguised that even Russell Sage, the celebrated designer responsible for the hotel’s new look, and Ellie Goss, corporate affairs and hospitality director for Glenmorangie, admit they regularly forget where they are.
Finding hidden whisky is playful, and if there’s one word to sum up Ardbeg House, ‘playful’ could be it. There are ‘Easter eggs’ to discover throughout the hotel, from works of high art and craftsmanship to pieces made by the local community. The clock behind reception always runs late, for example, because it’s on Islay Time. Above your head in the private dining room, the chandelier is a many-tentacled octopus suspended from the ceiling. The smoker and grill in the pub garden is made from repurposed distillery parts and the whisky trolley is a bike. With wings.
Mad though it sounds, the effect is a celebration of creativity and individuality – very Ardbeggian qualities – rather than something haphazard and dissonant. The eccentricity of the decor belies its luxury credentials: bespoke wallpaper, carpet and tiles in the bedrooms; antique pieces lovingly restored; marble basins and shower enclosures. The attention to detail is extraordinary and – whether you’re in the bar, the restaurant, the hallways and corridors or bedrooms – they exist to surprise and delight.
Ardbeg bought Islay House just over three years ago, closing the building in November 2024. The renovations took just under ten months. ‘Islay is already on the whisky-tourism map,’ Goss explains. ‘But we wanted to re-energise that and reinvigorate it, so that the tourists who want to come here have an experience and come back again. Maybe they’ll come as an [existing] Ardbeg or whisky fan. Maybe they won’t. We want to make sure that whatever happens, when they leave, they leave loving whisky and Ardbeg.’
The chances of that after a visit to the Islay Bar is strong. The heart of Ardbeg House, it has 56 of the distillery’s own whiskies and 56 others available – three from each Islay distillery and a smattering of options from others around Scotland. ‘We’ve been on the island for 200 years, so we wanted to make sure that the community was heavily involved in the development,’ says Goss. ‘Almost unanimously, they asked us to reinstate the Islay Bar.’
‘I was lucky enough to find the old Islay Bar signage in someone’s garden down the road,’ says Sage. ‘So we reused that on the front.’ In fact, many of the fittings and furniture are upcycled, reupholstered and made good. The fire table in the restaurant, positioned right next to a woodburner for extra cosiness, is made from offcuts of the marble used in the hotel bathrooms.
Upstairs are 12 bedrooms and each one is different. ‘There are no two pieces of the same furniture,’ explains Sage. ‘And each room celebrates the stories and people of Islay. The kind of tall tales you might hear someone tell in the pub.’ Some are ancient myths, others are celebrations of local legends – the island’s characters and personalities. Monster, for example, is inspired by the myth of the Ardbeg alligator and contains the most enormous four-poster bed wrapped in metal-worked tentacles. Wee Beastie takes its cue from the story of a knight who was killed by islanders and then reborn as a cloud of midgies to torment them – there’s a picture of midgies on the wall and the whisky is hidden in a midge net. Rebel features a painting of Sean O’Leary, a local artist who used to go around wearing an Admiral’s hat with fairy lights on it – there’s one of those in the room too – as well as a giant headboard featuring a Viking battle and what looks like a round gold Viking shield on the wall.
Even the toilet seats are individualised. In Feis (which incidentally has a grand piano as a headboard and a dresser made from an old upright piano), the loo seat is painted with the lyrics of ‘Westering Home’, a song regularly sung by one of the women who works at the distillery.
The quirks aren’t just to be found in the design. Quarter-past six in the evening is ‘Badger o’clock’ (18:15 being a nod to Ardbeg’s founding year), when the Islay Bar hosts a whisky hour to toast the day and pour drams of Ardbeg Badger Juice. Served from a small cask on the bar counter, it’s a small-batch, continually changing recipe only available by the dram at the Islay Bar.
Staying at Ardbeg House is an immersive experience but the Ardbeg team are definite that the hotel is a place for everyone; there’s no exclusivity here. From the Friday night ‘Shorties’ Table’ communal eating experience with paired whiskies to the fully accessible bedroom that looks anything but, the hotel is for locals and visitors, for whisky lovers and those who’d rather drink gin, for connoisseurs of great design and anyone looking for a warm, welcoming place to stay. A whisky hotel where all are welcome? Something to treasure for sure.
Ardbeg House, 18 Charlotte Street, Port Ellen, Islay, Scotland, ardbeghouse.com
