A quayside hotel with links to the real life Robinson Crusoe is on the market with a price tag of more than £900,000.
The Crusoe Hotel combines a stunning location with historical character, including a footprint supposedly left by Alexander Selkirk, the man said to have inspired author Daniel Defoe to write his classic tale.
The 16-bedroom hotel in Selkirk’s birthplace of Lower Largo in Fife’s picturesque East Neuk, has been put up for sale by owner Stuart Dykes, who also recently sold Dunnikier House Hotel in Kirkcaldy.
He and wife Lesley have announced plans to retire after almost 16 years at the helm.
The hotel attracts a mixture of holidaymakers, commercial visitors and golfers, many of whom are attracted by the story of Selkirk, who spent four years marooned on an uninhabited island off the coast of South America in the early 1700s.
The Robinson Crusoe theme is echoed throughout the rooms which include information boards about Selkirk, who also has a statue dedicated to him nearby in the village.
Alistair Letham, a director in the UK hotels agency team at Colliers International, said: “With the hotel’s location on the harbour quayside in the favoured East Neuk of Fife and close to St Andrews, the Crusoe Hotel’s availability is a wonderful, indeed possibly rare, opportunity to purchase a well-established and popular business which new owners could easily develop further by putting their own style and stamp on a very attractive establishment.”
The original stone building includes 16 modern en-suite bedrooms, as well as two bars, the Castaway restaurant and a lounge where the “Alexander Selkirk footprint” is set as a feature in the floor.
The hotel also includes part of the pier and harbour.
Selkirk, who had been with a band of buccaneers in the South Pacific before being marooned, was rescued from Mas a Tierra Island, now renamed Robinson Crusoe Island, in 1709 and arrived in England two years later.
His story was told by the essayist Richard Steele in 1713 and it is widely accepted that Defoe drew inspiration from these accounts for Robinson Crusoe.
