Marine & Lawn
CLIENT
AJ Capital Partners
TECHNOLOGIES
WordPress, PHP, JavaScript, Advanced Custom Fields
YEAR
2021
EXTERNAL URL
Full-stack development for the digital platform behind Marine & Lawn Hotels & Resorts — AJ Capital Partners’ luxury golf hospitality brand spanning Scotland and Northern Ireland. A 1.5-year engagement building a network of interconnected WordPress sites with booking integration, property-specific content architecture, and a phased rollout coordinated with hotel renovations and openings.
Development lead on this project, working directly with AJ Capital Partners.
Background
A Nashville-based investment firm was building a luxury hotel brand from scratch — and the digital platform had to launch alongside the first properties.
AJ Capital Partners — the Nashville-based real estate and hospitality firm behind Graduate Hotels — was assembling a new luxury brand called Marine & Lawn Hotels & Resorts. The concept: acquire and renovate historic hotels adjacent to the world’s most prestigious golf courses across Scotland and Northern Ireland, and unite them under a single brand identity. The first acquisitions were already in motion — the Macdonald Rusacks Hotel in St Andrews, overlooking the Old Course, and Marine North Berwick on the East Lothian coast — with full renovations underway and openings planned for summer 2021. The brand needed a digital platform that could launch with the first hotel and scale as new properties joined the collection. This was my first major project as a freelancer — the kind of long-term, high-ownership engagement that defined what my independent practice would become.
The platform needed to go live ahead of the first hotel openings and be architecturally ready for a growing portfolio — new properties were being acquired faster than they were being renovated.
Implementation
A phased network of WordPress sites, each property launched on its own timeline as renovations completed.
I led development on a WordPress platform architected to support a network of interconnected hotel websites — a central brand site at marineandlawn.com and dedicated experiences for each property, all sharing a unified design system and content infrastructure while allowing property-specific customization. The phased rollout was the defining challenge. Each hotel was on its own renovation timeline — Rusacks St Andrews and Marine North Berwick opened in summer 2021, with Marine Troon, Slieve Donard, Dornoch Station, and Portrush Adelphi following over the subsequent months. The platform had to launch in stages, with each new property site going live as its hotel opened, without disrupting the sites already in production. Advanced Custom Fields powered a structured content layer for property details, room types, dining venues, spa services, golf course information, and event spaces — all managed through dedicated field groups that gave each hotel’s team editorial independence without exposing the underlying architecture. The booking engine integration connected each property to the S.K. Chase reservation system with property-specific routing, so guests could book directly from any entry point across the network. The frontend delivered a visual-first experience — full-bleed photography, Vimeo video integration, filterable galleries, and responsive layouts designed to convey the heritage and landscape of each destination across every viewport.
The phased approach required careful planning — every launch had to be production-ready on its own terms while fitting seamlessly into the network that was growing around it.
Results
Six properties, one platform, and a brand that scaled from two Scottish hotels to a transatlantic collection.
The platform launched ahead of the first hotel openings in summer 2021 and grew alongside the brand over the course of the 1.5-year engagement. Rusacks St Andrews opened in September 2021 with a fully operational digital presence — booking integration, property content, dining and event information, and golf course guides all live from day one. Marine North Berwick followed on the same timeline, with Marine Troon, Slieve Donard, Dornoch Station, and Portrush Adelphi each launching as their renovations completed. The structured content architecture performed as designed — hotel teams across Scotland and Northern Ireland managed their own property content, updated seasonal offerings, and published event information independently, with zero developer involvement for day-to-day operations. The network has since expanded to include properties in the United States, with Mid Pines Inn and Pine Needles Lodge in the Pinehurst region of North Carolina joining the collection. The platform at marineandlawn.com continues to serve the brand today.
Marine & Lawn was the project that established my freelance practice — a 1.5-year engagement with real ownership, real complexity, and an architecture that continues to support a growing luxury hospitality brand years after I delivered it.
