A room viewed through a door or window with a blurred foreground. Outside, there are white chairs placed on a deck overlooking a body of water with mountains in the distance under a cloudy sky.
A plastic water bottle and a glass of water on a kitchen counter with a textured backsplash.
View of water with a white railing in the foreground and a wooden dock or pier extending into the water in the background.

design for return

A black and white line drawing of a mouse with a long tail.

We help hospitality owners and investors create properties that guests talk about and return to. The story spreads — and the numbers follow.

CHANGE IS INEVITABLE. GROWTH IS OPTIONAL

What's coming will reward the distinctive and leave the generic behind.

Holiday properties that don't lean into their identity and experience are leaving 40% on the table. In a market where wellness, design-forward stays and meaningful experiences command serious rate premiums, that gap is only growing.

Mookerjee works with hospitality owners and developers who understand that the best commercial returns come from places most completely themselves — rooted in landscape, material, and history, and entirely resistant to being generic. We bring together interiors, brand, and commercial strategy under one creative direction, because these things only work when they're built together from the start.

Two forces are reshaping hospitality right now. Guests are actively seeking places with a genuine story — heritage and character are driving a 15–25% revenue uplift over comparable standard stays. And the holiday itself is changing: from passive escape to active return — to landscape, making, physical effort, analogue slowness that accumulates into something.

The places being built for those impulses are outperforming the market. And, at the same time, the top tier is pulling away operationally. Visibility, dynamic pricing, automation, upselling add-ons, AI-driven discovery & personalisation — these tools are changing what's possible for independent operators. Combined with a strong creative foundation they compound. Without one, they optimise something mediocre.

A black wooden house with a sloped roof, surrounded by lush green foliage and plants, including a tree with green leaves in the foreground.
Table outdoors with seafood, a cookbook, candles, a basket of flowers, and decorative greenery on a white tablecloth, with a dark wooden fence in the background.
A dining table set for a meal with a white tablecloth, bowls of fruit and flowers in small vases, and candles. Wooden chairs surround the table. The background features a wooden-paneled kitchen with hanging ceiling lights, a basket on a shelf, a window, and visible kitchen appliances.
A carved wooden statue of a humanoid figure with a face and body, standing in a grassy field with mountains and cloudy sky in the background.
A view through an open door into a cozy room with light wooden walls, featuring a green seating area with cushions, and a basket on the floor. Part of the blue kitchen cabinet with round wooden knobs is visible in the foreground.
Two chairs, one with a blanket, set in a lush green forest with trees and moss, with a small table holding a thermos and cups.
A framed white ceramic plate with a relief carving of a tree branch and leaves, displayed in a green wall-mounted frame.

Borradill began as two underperforming cabins on 25 acres above Loch Sunart on the Ardnamurchan Peninsula.

The landscape was extraordinary. The commercial performance wasn't.

We undertook a complete refurbishment and relaunch — new interiors, a clear identity, a visual world and a story strong enough to travel. No external PR. No paid media. The work sold the place directly.

Within the first year: occupancy moved from 30% to 72%. Weekly rates increased by 120%.

Borradill was named in the Financial Times top 40 places to holiday in 2025, and featured in The Times, The Telegraph, The Guardian, Homes & Interiors.

The methodology is the same one we bring to every project.

OUR PROOF

The logo of The Times newspaper at the top, with a quote below that says: "I've never felt so smitten by a property, and so at home" attributed to Gemma Bowes, Travel Editor of The Times.
Text reading 'The Guardian' in black letters on a white background.
Text that reads 'REMODELA' in outlined black letters on a transparent background.
Text graphic reading 'FIFTY WKEND' in black and red letters.
Alphabet letters Y, X, and R with outline designs on a black background with descriptive text explaining their styles.
Black text on a transparent background that says "HOMES & INTERIORS SCOTLAND" in bold, all caps.
Black and white logo with the words 'North Y' and geometric shapes.

design for return

"I don't just think about how a space looks — I think about how it performs: how it attracts, how it retains, how it earns"

Close-up of a woman wearing a navy blue cap and black sweater, outdoors near rocks with blurred background.

CLAIRE MOOKERJEE

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Claire has spent twenty years thinking about what makes people want to return to a place — first at city scale, designing for human behaviour at Gehl Architects and as Head of Design at Future Cities Catapult, then as a BIID-certified interior designer and Mix Interiors Awards finalist in the hotel category 2025. Borradill is the proof of what that combination produces: 76% direct bookings, occupancy from 30% to 72%, rates up 120%.

our services

  • An independent assessment of a specific property against the Design for Return framework. For owners whose returns aren't reflecting the quality of what they have, landowners weighing up what a site could become, and buyers who want considered advice before they commit.

    Read more

  • Full creative direction for hospitality projects: interiors, identity, guest experience and commercial strategy built together from the start, because they only work that way.

    Read more

  • For those building lifestyle investments where design quality and return on investment are the same decision, not competing priorities.

  • For property owners and brands with ambitions beyond the commercial — places built around a landscape, a story, or a collaboration that neither party could have made alone.

  • The newsletter and growing community for owners, investors and developers who want to know what's coming before it arrives. Sign up

“More useful than a Rightmove scroll, almost as addictive”

A left- and right-brain take on holiday and lifestyle investments. Practical how-tos, industry insight, design playbooks, and how travel behaviour is shifting — from someone who's actually taken the leap.


The holiday and retreat industry is being remade — by independent operators, by shifting guest expectations, by ideas crossing over from design, fashion, food, farming and finance that most people in hospitality haven't clocked yet.

Atlantic Guild tracks what's happening at that edge with a commercial lens, as well as a beauty one. Each issue brings together the most interesting projects, models, and minds from across the UK, US and Europe — with contributions from owners, architects, brand strategists, and makers who are building something worth paying attention to.

For the people shaping what comes next in this space, not just responding to it.

ATLANTIC GUILD NEWSLETTER

The Design for Return Manual.

Everything that separates a beautiful property from a high-performing one, distilled into one practical guide.

Coming summer 2026 — sign up to receive it first.

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A dining area with a long table covered with a white tablecloth, surrounded by cream-colored chairs, set with small flower vases, candles, and a bowl of apples, with a kitchen visible in the background featuring dark green appliances, wooden panel walls, and pendant lights hanging from the ceiling.

EXPLORE our demonstrator project