Looking for a project

Eric Brown has been in touch and says: “The recent photograph in the Traces Through Time feature showing Balbirnie House Hotel, Markinch, prompted St Andrews locals to say: ‘we saw a young Eric Brown in The Courier!’

“In 1986, I had been looking for a hotel project when I discovered that Glenrothes Development Corporation had failed to find a developer for Balbirnie House. They moved in and used the premises as their own HQ.

“Luckily, I met Michael Thomson from Perth at a Rotary dinner in Nairn . He was looking to invest significant sums, having sold a family business. I now had a backer. I provided detailed conversion costs and financial projections. This meant that the acquisition and development costs would be around £1.5 million.

“Over the course of the next few months, Michael and I agreed to take on two more financial partners: Nash Broadus, an American, and Alan Russell, a chef/proprietor who had retired early from a business in Stewarton. He had been executive chef at the newly-built Bruce Hotel in East Kilbride in 1968, when I was a junior assistant, fresh out of Strathclyde University’s Scottish Hotel School.

“Balbirnie brought in almost £1 million in revenue in its first year and immediately attracted wedding business. Alan Russell was keen to get back into business and had failed to find a suitable project with the right deal.

“His daughter Rosemary and son Nicholas had also chosen the same career as Alan and, after discussion, in 1992 I agreed to sell our interest to him and his family.

“Having spent almost three years acquiring and developing the hotel, living on the premises night and day, my wife Margaret was relieved when we bought a family home back in St Andrews.

“In due course, Alan and his family bought out my other two partners and nine years later developed The Orangery as a purpose-built wedding venue attached to the original Grade A mansion. Balbirnie is still a highly successful wedding destination. You can now dispel the rumour that we bought Balbirnie for £1 or even £1,000. It cost us in excess of £1.5 million!”