On the Isle of Islay, a 12-room boutique hotel underwent a major refurbishment and used 200 years of distillery heritage as a core element of the interior design and one of the key partners in this project was the sculptural steel enamel from Kaldewei.
There’s a style of hotel that can only be created when the client has absolute faith in their design team, allowing them to follow an idea all the way to its logical, and slightly mad conclusion. Ardbeg House, which opened on Islay in autumn 2025, is that hotel. Its previous incarnation was as the modest Islay Hotel, following a multi-million-pound refurbishment with Russell Sage Studio it emerged as a 12-room homage to island folklore, distillery history and craft — a building that treats storytelling not as decoration but as the key to its design.
Each of the twelve bedrooms is unique, working with more than 20 Scottish artisans, the design team drew on the tales that circulate around Islay’s coastline and peat bogs — smugglers, raiders, sea creatures, and the entirely fictional but locally beloved “Islay-gator” — and built rooms around them. They used materials pulled from the island itself, for example a sculptural letter “A” forged from a retired whisky greets guests arriving, then in the Islay Bar, a boat-shaped chandelier strung with green glass Ardbeg bottles hangs overhead. It’s a hotel that tells tales, room by room.
Where the Story Meets the Plumbing
However, a design concept this immersive, can hit a snag when it has to evolve into a hotel bathroom – a space that needs to be durable enough for daily guest turnover; adaptable enough to sit comfortably within twelve wildly different room narratives, and sustainable enough to match the project’s wider environmental ambitions, all without breaking the spell the rest of the room has cast.
For that, the design team turned to Kaldewei, specifying steel enamel baths and shower trays across the guest bathrooms. A choice that was as much a design decision as a practical one: Kaldewei’s steel enamel has clean architectural lines and glass-smooth, tactile surface that enables it to sit within the boldest of rooms complementing and not competing with the design.
Its resistance to scratches, and other stresses and strains plus a finish that’s genuinely easy to keep hygienic makes it the perfect product to not only survive but thrive within a working hotel. Finished in warm grey and matt black across the marble and variety of tiled bathrooms, the baths and shower trays enhance the material language of each space rather than imposing one of their own.
“Being part of the Ardbeg House project is a genuine privilege for Kaldewei,” says Adam Teal, the brand’s UK Country Manager. “Seeing our steel enamel baths and showers integrated into such imaginative, narrative-rich interiors is incredibly rewarding. Ardbeg House sets a new benchmark for experiential hospitality, and we’re proud that Kaldewei plays a role in shaping the guests’ journey.”
A Sanctuary, Not an Afterthought
If the bedrooms are where Ardbeg House tells its stories, the bathrooms are where it lets guests recover from them. Kaldewei’s sculptural forms are put to fairly indulgent use here: deep bathing and generously proportioned showering, built to feel like a genuine pause rather than a functional afterthought bolted onto a themed room.
However imaginative hospitality design lives or dies on whether it can survive daily use, and at Ardbeg House they let the storytelling take the risks, whilst the bathroom hardware is the copy that doesn’t need reinventing every time.
Ardbeg House is located on the Isle of Islay, Scotland. Design by Russell Sage Studio. Bathroom fittings by Kaldewei.