Scottish hospitality veteran Ken McCulloch has passed away, aged 76.

The Glaswegian hotelier began his career with British Transport Hotels as a young commis chef, working in the kitchens at The Malmaison restaurant in Glasgow’s Central Hotel, and then at the Gleneagles Hotel in Perthshire.

After a short period with Stakis Hotels, he stepped out on his own and opened La Bonne Auberge, a wine-bar in the Park Circus area of Glasgow, before making his way to Royal Exchange Square, where he opened the Charlie Parker’s bar and restaurant.

In 1986, McCulloch opened the city’s first boutique hotel, One Devonshire Gardens, with his interior designer wife, Amanda Rosa. He then went on to create the Malmaison Hotel Group, whose first hotel opened in Edinburgh in 1994. The brand is widely regarded as being the driving force behind the UK’s boutique hotel movement.

After four years, McCulloch and his wife sold Malmaison and moved to Monaco, where they bought the Abela Hotel together with business partners including David Coulthard, before reopening it as The Columbus Hotel, to international acclaim.

The husband-and-wife duo then created the Dakota Hotels group in 2004, before returning home to Glasgow in 2009. The Dakota Hotels brand now operates properties in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Manchester.

Sleeper’s Editor-in-Chief Matt Turner comments: “Ken was an inspirational figure in the hospitality world. Malmaison – and prior to that, One Devonshire Gardens – changed the face of the UK hotel scene at a time when the majority of hotels were either stuffy ‘luxury’ offerings or bland, boring corporate boxes. The advent of Malmaison – and the boutique hotel movement it heralded – was a significant influence on our decision to launch Sleeper Magazine in 1999, with our first ever issue featuring Malmaison Leeds on the front cover. It is poignant that Ken passed away in the run-up to this year’s AHEAD Europe Awards, since he was the first ever recipient of the Outstanding Contribution Award in 2002, when it was known as the European Hotel Design Awards. Our thoughts are with his wife Amanda, and family.”