Perle Hotels are in the process of installing 18 new luxury cabins further up the hill at its Bracken Hide business in Portree.
Speaking to the Free Press, managing director Beth Rehman said the new ‘hides’ will be open by early April, with the groundworks already completed.
Four cabins have recently been delivered, with another four due by next week at the site, off Struan Road.
Because they sit higher up the hill – between 50 and 20 metres higher – they have a more remote feeling, she said.
“Bracken Hide had 27 hides when Perle Hotels bought the business last year so we did not have influence over where they were,” she explained.
“Those lower ones are more accessible for people who may have less mobility, but the higher ones are for our more adventurous guests who want to see the Storr on a good day and feel that sense of Skye being quite remote and quite wild.”
Perle have placed the new hides so “you can’t see your neighbours and you can’t see the ones in front of you if you are on the top level.
“The idea here is that you really feel privacy.”
They sit slightly on the other side of the hill, she said, “not facing towards the water but over Portree a little bit more.”
Planning permission for a total of 45 cabins was originally granted in 2019 to the original owner, Charlie Garton Jones, a London-based property developer.
Ms Rehman added: “The existing hides were a very nice hotel-room kind of concept, with the basics, the important things you need when you are staying somewhere.
“We listened to our guests and they were really keen to have a bit more, they wanted the hides larger and a larger bathroom.
“They were looking for somewhere to sit in the hide, somewhere a bit cosier.
“So what we have done is gone to a more luxurious interior – the space is about 1.5 metres longer. It feels a bit more like a high-end bedroom.
“It has been designed to give it that sense of guests being quite spoiled and treating themselves.”
Perle Hotels is due to be presented with the King’s Award for Enterprise by the Lord-Lieutenant of Ross and Cromarty, Mrs Joanie Whiteford, at a ceremony on Skye on Thursday.
Perle also owns the Bosville Hotel and Restaurant and Marmalade Hotel in Portree.
Ms Rehman said that, in the former, they will be redoing the staircase, installing new soundproofing, and redecorating, while in Marmalade they will be looking at a plunge pool and considering retreat ideas.
Article by MICHAEL RUSSELL
