History - Dunstane Hotels

Dunstane House Hotel has some famous names and associations in its family album. Built as a home in 1852 to a design of renowned Edinburgh architect, William Playfair, its original name was Dunstane Villa. You needn't look far for other examples of Playfair's outstanding work - the magnificent Donaldson's School for the Deaf just along from the hotel is also to his design. Dunstane was home to the Ross family, the confectioners who gave visitors and locals alike a sweet tooth for their famous Edinburgh Castle Rock. It is after the family that the Ross Bandstand in West Princes Street Gardens is named.

This sense of history and feel for its heritage has been retained now that Dunstane is a privately-owned country house hotel. But Dunstane is no museum piece. Rather, through careful and thoughtful design, new life has been brought to the interiors, while making the most of the many period features of intricate cornices, ornate fireplaces and stained glass windows. Dunstane House Hotel stands out from the crowd as a country house hotel with an entire city at the bottom of the garden and the rest of Scotland just beyond.

When we purchased the property for Dunstane City Hotel, little did we know we were reinstating a historical connection between it and Dunstane House at the same time.
It appears that around 1867 one Archibald Shearer, a music seller in Edinburgh who was living at Dunstane House at the time, "erected a house or villa (now known as Number Five Hampton Terrace) agreeable to the plan approved of by the Feoffers of Trust and Governors of George Heriot's Hospital". History has now come full circle as the link between Dunstane House at 4 West Coates and Dunstane City at 5 Hampton Terrace is revived.