The Highland

The Highland (formerly The Leicester Inn) is a hotel in Leicester, England, which is now owned by Barbara Martin and her husband Terry. It was originally opened in 1949, as a hotel, though the building has stood since the early Nineteenth Century, when it was a workhouse. Two American brothers named Gerald and Jack McIntyre originally opened the hotel and were co-owners, however, Gerald McIntyre returned to his hometown in New Jersey, and in 1950, gave Jack his part of the business.

History

The Highland hotel was opened as The Leicester Inn, in July 1949, by Gerald McIntyre, who was thirty at the time, and his younger brother Jack, who was only twenty-four. In 1950, Gerald McIntyre returned to New Jersey, and the hotel was solely run by Jack, until his girlfriend Gwen Newton came to live with him at the hotel, and worked there with him. However, they later moved out of the hotel. Jack and Gwen McIntyre's children worked there as teenagers, before going in different career paths.

McIntyre and his wife successfully ran the hotel until 1971, when a new hotel opened nearby, and caused the hotel to lose many of it's regular guests, which lead to McIntyre and his wife to separate and later divorce. McIntyre closed the hotel in 1973. However, the following year, after marrying his second wife Rose Walmer, who paid for the hotel to be refurbished, re-opened and renamed to The Highland hotel. McIntyre co-owned the hotel, with his second wife, successfully for over twenty years, before her death in 1997.

In 2004, McIntyre fell ill and gave the hotel to his youngest daughter Barbara Martin and her husband Terry, who still currently owns it.