Scarista House

Scarista House occupies a Grade B listed Georgian manse above a three-mile shell-sand beach on the west coast of Harris, run by Tim and Patricia Martin as a small hotel with six rooms: three in the main house and three suites in the adjacent Glebe House. Every room looks out to the Atlantic, the sand or the hills behind. Dinner is a daily-changing set menu built around Scottish and Hebridean produce, served in two small dining rooms, with bread, jam, ice cream and chocolates made on the premises. A separate cottage on the glebe takes dogs and self-caterers. The house was built as a minister's residence and has taken in travellers since the 1800s, though its life as a hotel dates to the 1980s. Open fires burn in the sitting rooms through the colder months.