It is one of the world’s most photographed hotels, built in a fit of rebellion against Scotland’s golfing elite.
Now lying empty and derelict in its prime spot overlooking the 18th hole of the Old Course at St Andrews, the spirit of Hamilton Hall is to be revived by the fortunes of American billionaire Herb Kohler.
The imposing sandstone building opened as The Grand Hotel in the 1890s when the Royal and Ancient Golf Club rejected Thomas Hamilton’s membership application because of his Jewish roots.
Hamilton took his revenge by building a much more extravagant, much taller building next door to the Royal and Ancient in an attempt to overshadow the exclusive club.
In a way it worked, with visitors often mistaking the dramatic form of Hamilton Hall for the headquarters of golf’s governing body.
Mr Kohler, who made his fortune from bathroom fittings, has purchased the building for £11 million, with the magnate claiming that the building, and its history, appealed to a very particular side of his nature.
“Hamilton Hall started with a sense of rebellion by Thomas Hamilton, and I have that sort of sense of rebellion in myself. I have done a lot of things that people have considered rebellious,” Kohler told the Herald shortly after arriving in St Andrews from the US yesterday.
“When I was a lad, my father wanted me to go to a good college like Yale and then go on to work for the Kohler Company. I wasn’t prepared to accept a life like that so I rebelled. I became an actor and I was always determined to make that my profession. My friends would refer to me as one of the first great unwashed.”
Mr Kohler, eventually, took up his father’s offer of a role with the family business, started by his grandfather, and later expanded it to account for his love of golf.
The Kohler Company now owns and operates two golf courses in his home state of Wisconsin, plus The American Club, a former worker’s dormitory which he turned into a Five-Diamond resort hotel. He also owns the Old Course Hotel in St Andrews.
At Hamilton Hall, Mr Kohler wants to convert the listed building into apartments, with room for the equivalent of 60 one-bedroom luxury flats. He has an idea about forming a private club around the apartments, with members able to spend time at his Wisconsin resorts as well as St Andrews.
On his vision for Hamilton Hall, he said: “If you can imagine the position in society of the Grand Hotel when it was first created, it was very upscale and yet it was accessible. It wasn’t over the top where just a handful of people could experience it. Expensive, but not too expensive, with a great value placed on the experience. That is what we would like to create in the new Grand.
“It is not a bashful building, it is a very prominent building and probably, along with the Royal and Ancient, one of the most photographed buildings in golf. It is also such a part of village life in St Andrews.”
Shortly after the end of the Second World War, the hotel was bought by the University of St Andrews and was opened as a hall of residence in 1949 under the name Hamilton Hall. It later featured in the film Chariots of Fire.
In 2005, the University announced that it had sold the hall as the result of an unsolicited bid, but construction work on an £84m luxury conversion was halted earlier this year when the property market crashed.
Mr Kohler said that a consultation would be launched with local people about the new face of the old Grand Hotel. He said that dialogue with the community was important given the gravitas of the project.
When asked if he had been surprised at the controversy surrounding Donald Trump’s golf resort in Aberdeenshire, he said: “No not surprised, because he does things that some people don’t like and that is just his nature, but in this case he has people living on the land and he is trying to get the Government to get them to leave. Well, if I was in their shoes I wouldn’t leave either and I would give as much of a fight as they are. It is unfair for these people, there is no question.
“Donald wants to build a resort that is beyond anyone’s imagination and he is capable of that. But in these economic times people have to be more careful and maybe Donald is not so ambitious any longer. The economic situation has tempered a lot of economic enthusiasm,” he said.
Mr Kohler, who described Mr Trump as “an acquaintance”, said that he spoke to him earlier this week.
“He said he wanted to buy an apartment in Hamilton Hall, so Donald will be one of my first customers,” Mr Kohler said.
