Four houses,
one keeper

Four small hotels run by the same family under four names, given one identity that has not been touched since.

Client

Sable House, Edinburgh

Year

2019

Services

Brand identity
Signage

Sector

Hospitality
Four properties

Duration

Twelve weeks
Jun – Sep 2019

Team

Partner, design
designer, writer

The family had bought four houses over twenty years and kept every name that came with them. Guests who loved one had no idea the other three existed.

Consolidating was the obvious answer and the wrong one: the houses are genuinely different, and the names were the least interesting thing about them.

The identity is a keeper’s mark rather than a hotel brand. One wordmark, one brass plate, and a house rule that everything else — the paint, the china, the garden — stays local to the property.

We wrote a page on what must never be standardised. It is longer than the page on what must.

Pl. 01  Brass plate, first casting

Pl. 02  Room card, Ivy House

The identity rolled out one property at a time over eighteen months, each house taking the mark when it was next due for redecoration rather than on a campaign schedule.

( 02  Ninety days later )

9 yrs

Unchanged

The 2019 identity still running across four properties.

4→1

Names

House names folded into one keeper’s mark.

+22%

Cross-stays

Guests booking a second property within two years.

1

Page

The whole identity, as issued to the four houses.