Escape USONIA

This Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired retreat in the Borders comes with its own sauna and hot tub

-  Natasha Radmehr

Every time I'm lucky enough to stay in a swanky hotel or stylish home-from-home, I inevitably come away with a new idea for my Dream House. The wall-mounted ceramic plates in a Lisbon rental; Gleneagles Townhouse's spaniel-patterned Brunschwig & Fils wallpaper; the striped headboards at the Deux Gares Hotel in Paris. The list is now significantly heftier than my bank balance, and I'm yet to actually buy the dream gaff. Still, it's fun to tickle the ol' imagination.

Sometimes it's just the feel of a place that burrows into my bones. That's what Usonia, a self-catering retreat in Melrose, does. It's a window into the life I could have if I emptied my handbag more than once a year and stopped hoarding clothes. In Usonia, I can be the woman who wears billowy white shirts and smells like Aesop. Underfloor heating and an outdoor sauna will do that to a person.

Usonia didn't possess these modern luxuries when Seamus Shanks, co-founder of Draw Architecture, bought it last April. That didn't matter much, though; he was far more interested in the building, which dates from the 1960s and doffs a cap to Frank Lloyd Wright's flat-roofed, cantilevered Usonian houses - hence the name. "It really is a good example of what modernism was trying to achieve, particularly when you relate it to residential dwellings at the time," says Seamus. It felt a fitting addition to Draw Architecture's existing clutch of holiday properties, all united by their interesting architectural credentials (including a modernist cottage on the shores of Loch Rannoch called Elemental that, like Usonia, can be booked via Unique Homestays).