This is the 18th century country property in South Lanarkshire that has been revived with a £1 million makeover by the pair behind the five-star Blythswood Square Hotel in Glasgow.
Hans Rissmann and Peter Taylor have today unveiled the Strathaven Hotel as they set out to build the distinctively Scottish hospitality group, The Rissco Collection.
Acquired by its new owners in January, the hotel is set in three acres of grounds with the refurbishment programme nearing its end.
READ MORE: First look inside Scotland’s first-ever rooftop cider garden as it finally opens in Glasgow
The new restaurant and bar area has already been completely redesigned and the final phase will see a grand ballroom open soon too.
Both spent more than two years looking for the perfect opportunity in the Strathaven Hotel - which has 22 rooms and employs 48 staff - after previously working together to launch the Blythswood.
The partners hope to reposition the hotel as a premium destination for weddings and business conferences when the 200-capacity ballroom reopens, and also plan to double turnover to £2 million a year by hosting around 60 weddings annually.
Hans Rissmann and his wife Lydia in the new Strathaven Hotel bar
Mr Rissmann described how his father was a hotelier, something which saw him “born and bred into the industry.”
He added: “It has always been my ambition to have a hotel of my own.
“When we found the Strathaven Hotel, we immediately loved the Georgian front to the building and we liked the challenge of reinvigorating the interiors to bring them up to date.
READ MORE: Walk through the luxury Park Quadrant Residences in Glasgow's West End
“The hotel had lacked investment in recent years and the local competition had improved, so it had lost trade, but this is a great area and Strathaven has great potential.”
The ambitious pair hope to create a group of five hotels across Scotland over the next decade.
The investment in the Strathaven Hotel was supported by a £1million loan from Bank of Scotland.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here