The latest series of Scotland’s Home of the Year has finished for another year.
Despite making the final, Broughty Ferry’s Tree House missed out to Hilltop House in Aberdeenshire.
The BBC has commissioned an 8th season of the property show and will begin filming in June 2025.
We’ve taken a look back through SHOTY’s history to find the best Tayside and Fife homes to have featured in the show.
2019
The first season of SHOTY saw two Tayside and Fife homes reach the final.
Little Blair House in Dalgety Bay won the East of Scotland episode. Its owners transformed it from a simple 1970s bungalow into a stunning and vivid family home.
Textile designer Rachel Henderson bought the much-loved seaside home from her grandmother.
On a miniscule budget she managed to transform it into a rainbow-hued, sun-drenched and happy place to live.
SHOTY’s first season also featured the Humpty House at Loch of Lintrathen, north of Kirriemuir.
Designed by its owners, Ben Scrimgeour and his wife Rosemary, the home also houses their architectural practice.
Rosemary said at the time: “It is a contemporary Scottish building which is half family home and half office.
“Humpty House is a 21st century interpretation of a traditional rural agricultural structure.
“The interior is open with long wide oak floor boards, exposed agricultural style steel, enormous shutters and pendant lights.
“We designed many of the building components from our steel roof structure to our staircase, furniture and even the kitchen drawer pulls.”
2020
The sophomore season of SHOTY saw two Tayside homes make the final.
A home near Brechin and a cottage in Strathtay came out on top in the Grampian and Perthshire episodes of the show.
The Glebe is a former manse in the hamlet of Farnell, around five miles from Brechin. Its owners Jane and Ruaraidh Adams shared it with their three children and their dog.
Interior designer Jane remodelled the house, knocking down a wall to create an open plan kitchen/living area.
Another home to feature in the second season is Mouse Cottage in Highland Perthshire. The house sits on the edge of Strathtay Golf Course.
The two bedroom cottage is owned by artist Penny Kennedy, who lived there for three years before commencing an 18-month overhaul of the house.
Beside the house is Penny’s studio, which faces south and gets lots of natural light. She also bought a patch of land from the golf course to expand her garden.
Penny used a female builder from Aberfeldy, Jo Penfold, to spearhead the renovation works. She also had mains water installed after getting fed up of carrying buckets up the garden to clear silted-up water tanks.
2021
A stunning new build in St Andrews featured on Scotland’s Home of the Year in 2021.
The Garden House is a beautiful modernist home with a feature pond and decking. The house is owned by Helen and Ben Gray, who live there with their son Zach and three-year old spaniel Soda.
The Hepburn Gardens site originally belonged to a house on the opposite side of the street.
One of the challenges of building the Garden House was designing a home that didn’t overlook neighbouring properties.
The house looks over its own Japanese style garden complete with pond and decking.
Iron Mill Bay also featured in the third season. It’s a unique home overlooking the River Forth.
It was built by Lisa Malube and her husband Martin for the couple and their three children.
They used East Neuk based Fife Architects to come up with a unique design that put a circular stone tower as its focal point.
The five-bedroom, two-storey home has a T-shaped floor plan with a large open plan living/kitchen/dining area that has a double height ceiling and gallery above.
The reception room and most of the bedrooms are located to take advantage of the sweeping views across the river.
Eco features were a priority and the house has an air source heat pump, solar panels and a rainwater harvesting system.
A Mid Century Funhouse in Dunblane also cropped up in season three.
Its lively interior is a tribute to the 1960s, inspired in part by the hit TV show Mad Men. It’s full of yellows and greens, along with vintage fixtures and furnishings.
The house was an eight-year labour of love for owners Nick and Fiona Grant, who live there with their son Eddie.
2022
An abandoned concrete water tank in Fife was converted into a stunning home that reached the 2022 SHOTY final.
The Old Waterworks is a remarkable property near Crail that’s been made from an abandoned concrete water storage tank.
It was built by Sam and Ewan Robertson, who bought the Old Waterworks when they were just 18 years old. The abandoned building sat in a quiet corner of the farm owned by Ewan’s family.
The Old Waterworks is an extraordinary three-bedroom home. The vaulted concrete structure has a living roof covered in grass.
Inside, the main living area is open plan and the beautiful barrel concrete ceiling forms a remarkable feature. There is a double-height living area and a beautiful sunroom that is accessed from the decking outside.
The fourth season of the show also featured Easter Cottage in Charlestown, on the Forth Coast.
Dorothy and Ricky Steedman bought the house in 2020 and set about transforming it. One of the main changes was converting an upstairs bedroom into a yoga studio.
A few miles along the Fife coastline in Dalgety Bay is the Scottish Vybe, another home to feature in SHOTY’s fourth season. It was given a dramatic overhaul by Angela and Paul Young.
Built in the late 1950s the Scottish Vybe was originally owned by a Norwegian sea captain. He took the unusual-for-the-time step of making the property an upside down house, with the living room upstairs and the bedrooms on the ground floor.
Also in season four was Our Adapted Home, a semi-detached house in Dundee that was cleverly modified for the needs of a disabled child.
It was bought by Katie and Daniel Radke, who extensively transformed it to accommodate their daughter Jessica.
It has runners and hoists in the ceiling, an accessible wetroom, a profiling bed, and other equipment designed to make life easier.
At the same time it is a bright and colourful modern family home.
2023
The season-opener in 2023 featured two Fife properties.
Alexandra Apartment is a double-upper flat in Kirkcaldy that’s home to Gary Gourlay and his flatmate Sammy.
The flat has a lovely semi open-plan layout, with the living room flowing into the kitchen and windows to both front and rear. Upstairs, the master bedroom has a bay window and rooftop views to the sea.
In nearby Markinch, Mount Frost is a detached 1990s house. Emma and Scott Gillespie extensively overhauled the property.
The house is spread over four levels, with the ground floor featuring a shower room and an office. On the first floor is a fantastic open plan kitchen, dining area and snug. Up another level is the formal living room, while the bedrooms are on the top floor.
Meanwhile, the Old Manse in Auchterarder was one of the six properties to make the final in 2023.
The handsome house was the winner of the fifth season’s third episode, which focused on the Central Belt.
Kelly and Michel Hillard upgraded the building. They knocked through a wall to create a wonderful open plan kitchen/diner that takes full advantage of views over the enormous walled garden.
Judge Banjo Beale said of the Old Manse: “If I could change one thing it would be replacing the owners with myself.”
A striking new build house near St Cyrus in Aberdeenshire also reached the final six. Snowdrop House is a stunning contemporary home clad in stone and timber built by property developer Ross and his partner Emily.
Originally Ross planned to build three homes on the plot and sell them for a profit. However he and Emily fell in love with the site and decided to build their own dream home instead.
2024
A fantastic mill conversion near Dunblane featured in the sixth season of SHOTY.
The Old Mill lies on the banks of the Allan Water. Fields and woodland surround the building.
Built 200 years ago, its occupants abandoned it for more than 25 years. But Lee and Dawn Collins bought the derelict building.
“It was in quite a state when we got it and had been derelict for at least 25 years,” Lee said.
“But it was too good an opportunity to pass up. You had this great mill building on a site with a river running through it.”
He split the Old Mill into a three-bedroom main house with a home office, and a two-bedroom townhouse annex.
The 2024 season of SHOTY also featured the Pink House, in the village of Crossford, near Dunfermline.
Built in the 1940s, the Pink House has mock-Tudor styling, exposed brickwork, and bay windows.
Its owners Heather and Brian Craig transformed it with a palette of bold colours – most notably pink.
Are there any Tayside and Fife SHOTY winners?
So far no house in Tayside or Fife has won Scotland’s home of the year…or has it?
It’s true that the main SHOTY show has yet to see a winner from this area. However, each December the show returns for a one-off Christmas special episode.
The judges crowned a Perthshire cottage Scotland’s Christmas Home of the Year in 2022.
You can find Easter Shian in beautiful Glen Quaich. That’s midway between Crieff, Dunkeld and Aberfeldy.
Debbie Halls-Evans and her husband Dave bought the house in August 2020. The farmhouse dates from 1705.
Each year they put up four huge Christmas trees and light a roaring fire to enjoy total Christmas seclusion in their remote glen.
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