Escape Leuchie Walled Garden

An inviting combination of 200-year-old garden, modernist building and rich family history makes this an East Lothian holiday retreat with a difference

- Catherine Coyle

Finding a way to hang on to the past, without hoarding relics or clinging on to every scrap of memorabilia, is more difficult than you’d imagine. But striking a balance between honouring history and preserving something for the future is a balance that Janey and Hew Dalrymple have achieved with aplomb. When Hew’s parents passed away in 2018, he knew he’d never be able to part with the modernist home they’d built 60 years ago in North Berwick, where he and his brothers grew up. But he was also aware that this quirky, mid-century home was not fit for 21st-century living.

Designed by Sir James Dunbar-Nasmith (whose firm was responsible for the Edinburgh Festival Theatre) within the family’s 200-year-old walled garden, the property has been given a sensitive, contemporary extension and renovation courtesy of Annie Macpherson of Gray Macpherson Architects. “Partner Mich Gray was a pupil of James Dunbar-Nasmith and had long admired the building,” says Macpherson. “We were very conscious that any alterations must be respectful to the original design.”