Ayres Hotel, 3 Victoria Crescent, Oban

Corran House Hotel, comprising numbers 1-4 Victoria Crescent, is a later 19th century stepped crescent of four near-identical houses. The intended wider crescent was not fully constructed. The houses are two storeys and an attic, built over a raised basement, and each has two bays. Number 1 has an additional window in the stop-chamfered corner at the right-hand side of the first floor. The architecture incorporates Scots Baronial details. The buildings were originally guest houses, with a double pile plan, and include an additional floor to the rear. The entrance elevations face the centre of the crescent to the west, stepping back at each dividing wall.

The front elevations are of sandstone ashlar, though number 4 is painted. The mutual gable skewbacks are also finished in sandstone ashlar. Numbers 1-3 feature a painted porch and principal floor window. The rear wall is of random rubble, with projecting ashlar sills and dressings, the window surrounds being droved into roll mouldings. The end walls are harled, indicating the intended continuation of the crescent and are painted at the south end.

The west (principal) elevation includes a band course below the principal floor and a cornice at the eaves. The easternmost house features a stilted segmental-arched entrance porch with columns that have foliate capitals and bases, a cornice, and a decorative stepped parapet above. Roll mouldings are present around the arch and doorway. Basement windows survive at numbers 1, 2, and 4. A bipartite window features a projecting, corbelled and roll-moulded surround with flanking decorative corbelled buttresses. A bipartite window is above, corniced with a roll moulding, and a similarly detailed narrow single window sits to the left of the entrance porch. A window is set into the stop-chamfered corner at the first floor on the outer right, boasting a corbelled lintel and sill.

The east (rear) elevation is three storeys and an attic over a basement, with two-bay elevations and regularly spaced windows. Corners to the right are chamfered and stepped back with windows in the chamfer. Plate glass timber sash and case windows are present at all windows, except for modern glazing at the principal and first floor windows of number 1. Grey slate M-roofs are topped with gabled and canted dormers at the front pitches. Number 2 features bipartite box dormers, while number 3 has a gabled slate-hung dormer to the left bay. Finials adorn the north dormers of numbers 3 and 4. Rear dormers include a canted, flat-roofed dormer at number 1, bipartite box dormers at number 2, a gabled slate-hung dormer at number 3, and a canted piend-roofed dormer at number 4. Gabled crowsteps are present on all skews at the west side, except for the north end gable. Two 10-flue stacks with a string course, cornice and circular cans are on the dividing wall of each house, except for the north end gable. Surviving cast-iron entrance stair handrails are present, except at number 2.

Contemporary stop-chamfered gate piers with caps survive to the west fronts of numbers 3 and 4. A modern extension has been added to the basement of number 2.