In this saturated age of homogenous everything, The Fife Arms in Braemar, Scotland is an aesthetic, adventurous one-of-a-kind.
Surprises abound – so many and so dense – when stepping foot into the newly renovated 19th-century Victorian coaching inn The Fife Arms in the scenic village of Braemar, Scotland, it's nearly impossible to know where to look first. The entrance to the hotel sets the bar sky-high. What looks like a copy of a Pablo Picasso piece on the right wall is, in fact, an original Mousquetaire Assis (1967) and would likely fetch in excess of $20 million at auction. On a wall opposite hangs an innocuous-looking pencil and watercolour of a stag's head in a frame – and yes, it's an original by an enthusiastic artistic amateur more commonly known as Queen Victoria.
As your eyes ascend the staircase in this semi-baronial hall meets hunting-lodge atmosphere, a neon orb composed of bagpipes and glass antlers cascades from the ceiling over the banisters; Red Deer Chandelier (mighty Instagrammable it is, too) is a commissioned piece by Los Angeles-based artist Richard Jackson. You could explore nothing else at The Fife Arms but this space, safe in the knowledge that few hotels in the world, if any, could induce such heady and immediate aesthetic delirium.
