Another Place, The Machrie - A World-Class Golf Course, Ten Distilleries, and a Banksy by the Front

There's a moment, somewhere between spotting a golden eagle banking over the Atlantic and realizing the painting next to your breakfast table is a genuine Tracey Emin, when Another Place, The Machrie stops feeling like a hotel and starts feeling like a very convincing dream.

Set on the Isle of Islay off Scotland's west coast, this is a place that earns its dramatic billing without trying particularly hard. The landscape does most of the work. A championship links course rolls out across ancient duneland toward a seven-mile beach. Wood-fired hot tubs steam in the open air beside a cold plunge pool. Ten whisky distilleries dot the island. And somewhere out in Laggan Bay, if you're lucky, a minke whale is minding its own business.

The Machrie has been reimagined and expanded since its relaunch as part of the Another Place collection in August 2024, but the bones of it, including the 1891 golf course, the Atlantic views, and the unhurried Hebridean pace, remain stubbornly, wonderfully intact.

Location

Islay (pronounced eye-la, not eye-lay, a correction the locals will offer kindly but definitively) is the fifth largest Scottish island, home to around 3,000 people and an improbable concentration of things worth traveling a long way to see. It sits in the Inner Hebrides off Scotland's west coast, roughly 25 miles long, edged by 130 miles of Atlantic coastline and punctuated by 23 beaches, sea lochs, high peaks, and cliffs that drop sharply into cold green water.

Getting there is part of the experience, whether you want it to be or not. A 45-minute flight from Glasgow is the quickest option, but many people choose the slower route: driving to Kennacraig and boarding the ferry to Port Ellen, a journey of around two and a half hours on the water that passes the Mull of Kintyre, the peaks of Arran, and the distinctive silhouette of the Paps of Jura. Dolphins appear regularly alongside the ferry. On a clear day, the whole approach feels like the island is making an argument for itself before you've even arrived.

The hotel sits above the dunes of Laggan Bay on the island's west coast, looking directly out at the Atlantic. There is no town nearby. There is no noise, particularly. There is a great deal of sky.

Where the Fairways End and the Atlantic Begins

The Machrie's golf course dates to 1891, an original design by Willie Campbell laid across some of the finest links terrain in Scotland. The hotel that grew up around it has passed through various iterations, but its current chapter began in earnest with a major redesign of the course in 2018 by David J. Russell, bringing it to modern championship standards while preserving its character. The hotel itself followed, refurbished and expanded into the contemporary, 43-room property it is today.

In August 2024, The Machrie became the second hotel in the Another Place collection, joining its Lake District sibling and gaining a more defined identity in the process: contemporary rooms, expanded dining, new wellness facilities, and a personal art collection assembled by the hotel's founder, Sue Nye, that would embarrass most dedicated galleries.

With just over 3,000 residents spread across the island, Islay generates almost no light pollution. On a clear night, the sky above The Machrie is the kind that makes people stop walking and look up in a way they haven't since childhood. The naked eye is enough to take in stars that most city-dwellers have forgotten exist; bring a telescope and you're looking at galaxies and nebulae.

The Courtyard Lobby

The Courtyard lounge is where the art collection announces itself most forcefully. John Bellany's Ailsa Craig sets a tone of vivid, expressive color from its position on the wall. Peter Howson's Govan Hard Man lunges out of his frame in the same space with the considerable physical menace that made Howson's name in 1980s Glasgow.

Heidi Wickham's Big Hare, which according to Sue Nye receives more attention from visitors than almost anything else in the collection, watches the room with the particular authority that only large rabbits seem to command. A Grayson Perry facemask and plate hang alongside a Picasso print on cotton. Dolly the Sheep, a textile sculpture named after the first cloned mammal and present since the early days of the build, stands near reception wearing Wellington boots at appropriate times of year and a lamb in spring.

The Courtyard functions as the hotel's main social hub: sofas, board games, books sourced from The Celtic House in Bowmore, and the particular comfort of a room that takes its art seriously without taking itself seriously at all.

The Stag Lounge

The focal point of the Stag Lounge is a two-meter corten steel stag's head by German artist Fabian von Spreckelsen, mounted above the fireplace with the kind of commanding presence the room's dimensions require. It was one of the first pieces Sue Nye acquired for the collection, bought specifically for that wall.

Nearby, Adrian Wiszniewski's vibrantly colored 1986 screenprint Poet occupies a prime position, and Ally Thompson's Manhattan Mike and The Road Mender keeps it company. John Byrne's L'ange Noir (The Black Angel), an androgynous, rust-and-cobalt figure about two meters wide, keeps watch over the room.

Its journey to Islay was not smooth: the glass frame shattered in transit, and sourcing a replacement piece large enough on an island proved impossible, leading to an anxious negotiation with the auction house before a Perspex solution was agreed upon. The artwork itself was unharmed.

The Stag Lounge has sundowner written all over it. It faces the ocean. Dogs are welcome here when they're not allowed elsewhere in the hotel.

The restaurant earns its four-star Silver AA rating and culinary rosette without making a performance of either. The room wraps around panoramic views of the links and the Atlantic beyond, with a separate tower section at the end offering dual-aspect views of both the course and the water.

The food celebrates what the island actually produces rather than what a hotel chef might wish it produced: venison from Ardtalla, vegetables and herbs from the kitchen garden, game from local farms, seafood from day boats. Breakfast runs from a full Scottish to kedgeree to Islay waffles. Sunday lunch offers three courses built on classic Scottish combinations. Afternoon tea is a daily event.

The bar pours an appropriate range of single malts at appropriate hours, and the cocktail list applies an Islay logic to familiar formats: Bunnahabhain whisky with apricot brandy and smoked cinnamon; Ardbeg in a sour with demerara and bitters. Dogs cannot come in here, but the Stag Lounge can be set up as an alternative dining space for those traveling with animals.

At the end of a meal, if you haven't already, order the Loch Gruinart oysters. They come from just up the coast. They taste like the Atlantic smells.

The Rooms

Lodges

The two-bedroom lodges sit next to the hotel and open directly onto the duneland, which is either the most or least efficient arrangement depending on how much self-control you have about going outside. French doors lead to an outdoor seating area with uninterrupted views toward the Atlantic.

Inside, there's a living area, a pantry kitchen with an oven, two-ring hob, dishwasher, and full cooking equipment, two bedrooms with super king-size or twin beds, and space for a z-bed and cot. They're designed with families and groups in mind: the kitchen means you're not trapped in the restaurant for every meal, the separate living space means children and adults can maintain the fiction of independent existence, and the direct access to the golf links means that whoever among you plays golf has essentially no commute to the first tee.

The Islay Room

The largest individual room in the hotel, the Islay room has a modern four-poster king-size bed and triple-aspect windows positioned to make the most of far-reaching views over the Islay countryside. There's a desk, a sitting area with armchairs, and enough space to add a child's bed or cot.

The style is light and contemporary, which is a reasonable way of describing what happens when someone thinks carefully about a room rather than simply filling it. Note that this room doesn't accommodate dogs.

Best

Best rooms offer a step up in size from standard, with views that extend over the ocean, the golf links, or the Islay countryside depending on the room. Ground-floor rooms have patio doors opening onto a seating area with direct views over the links and the dunes.

Most have a separate bath and shower. Some have space for an extra bed and cot. Several are dog-friendly. These are rooms where the view does a significant portion of the work, which on Islay is an entirely reasonable division of labor.

The Wild Garden

The Wild Garden is the hotel's outdoor wellness space, and it commits to its Scandinavian reference points without irony. Surrounded by wildflowers and landscaping planted specifically to encourage biodiversity, it contains two wood-fired hot tubs, a cold plunge pool, and an outdoor sauna, all open from 7am to 9pm.

A communal fire pit provides a gathering point afterward, with Tunnock's Teacakes available for toasting and whisky for warming up. The whole setup has views across the championship links and out toward the sunsets over Laggan Bay, which on a clear evening is not a view you quickly forget.

Hot Tubs

The wood-fired hot tubs work differently from the electric versions most hotels default to, requiring more patience and generating a different quality of heat. They sit in open air, meaning the experience of using them in winter, surrounded by cold Hebridean air with a view of the dunes and the darkening sky, is substantially different from using them in summer.

Both have their arguments. The cold tub offers a sharp counterpoint. The sauna is the conventional path between them. The whole progression, from heat to cold to fire pit, follows a logic the Scandinavians figured out a long time ago and that this particular location, with its combination of views and open air, makes feel newly reasonable.

The Machrie Golf Course

The course is the reason many people come to Islay in the first place, and it rewards the journey. Willie Campbell's 1891 design was substantially reworked by David J. Russell in 2018, bringing it to over 7,000 yards from the back tees while preserving the essential character of a links course built on genuine duneland. Four sets of tees make it accessible across handicap ranges.

The fairways are generous but the terrain is not forgiving: contoured greens, revetted bunkers, and the constant Atlantic wind ensure that anyone who thinks they've worked out the course is probably wrong. Views of the Paps of Jura and the peak of Beinn Bheigeir accompany the back nine. Hares cross the fairways without particular concern for the people playing. Eagles, both golden and white-tailed, have been spotted overhead.

Alongside the championship course, the hotel runs a six-hole par-3 Wee Course, a covered driving range, and a short-game area. The Hebrides, a new 19-hole social putting course, offers a more accessible entry point. All are open to non-residents as well as guests.

The course currently sits at 78 in Golf World's Top 100 best courses in the world, a ranking that will mean a great deal to golfers and provides reasonable supporting evidence to everyone else that the links is worth the trip even if you've never picked up a club.

The Island Around You

Islay is not a subtle place. Its wildlife operates at a scale that makes you feel less like an observer and more like someone who wandered into someone else's nature documentary. Greenland barnacle geese winter on the island in numbers significant enough to have attracted David Attenborough's Wild Isles film crews.

Golden eagles and white-tailed eagles are resident. Red deer appear on headlands. Dolphins and seals are regular features of the coastline. On a wildlife boat trip out of Port Ellen, your skipper may point out swimming stags, otters, and, on the right day, a minke whale.

The seven-mile beach at Laggan Bay is a five-minute walk through the golf course. It stretches from Laggan Point through Machrie to Kintra and is used for swimming, fat-biking, and sunset picnics in roughly equal measure. The hotel has a fleet of fat bikes available. The beach is long enough that finding a stretch of it to yourself is not difficult even in summer.

Beyond Laggan Bay, the island's 23 beaches range from vast Atlantic-facing expanses to sheltered northern bays where you look west to open water or east across the narrow channel to Jura. The swimming is good where the currents allow it, and the hotel provides guidance on where those places are.

Loch Gruinart and Loch Indaal are among the more sheltered options. The same Gulf Stream that moderates Cornwall's climate runs up the west coast of Scotland, which means the water temperature, while not warm in any absolute sense, is consistently less punishing than its latitude might suggest.