Palace Hotel, 18 George Street, Oban

The Palace Hotel, located at 18 George Street in Oban, is a terraced hotel built in the later 19th century. It is a four-storey building with an attic and features a three-bay near symmetrical design in a plain classical style. The exterior is made of sandstone ashlar and includes shops at the ground floor.

On the west elevation, there is a cornice and a band course above the modern shopfront at the ground floor, with the hotel entrance door situated in the outer left bay. A string course runs along the cill level of the third floor, interrupted by pilasters, a band course, a mutuled cornice, and a low blocking course at the eaves. The elevation is framed by strip pilasters that divide the bays, with the outer pilasters shared with neighboring buildings. The pilasters extend into dies above the cornice, featuring ball finials on the outer dies and plain block center dies. A canted oriel window is present at the first floor, complete with a bracketed stone balcony above. The first and second floor windows are linked in vertical panels, with the second floor windows having shouldered tops, cornices, and cills over aprons decorated with triglyphs.

The east (rear) elevation is rendered and includes a projecting square stair tower with bipartite windows. The building features plate glass timber sash and case windows, with multi-pane upper sashes at the second and third floors, and 8-pane timber sash and case windows in the rear upper stories. The roof is covered with grey slate, featuring flat-roofed dormers on the west pitch at each bay and bipartite plate glass timber sash and case windows. The rear wing roof is also grey slate, with a piend-roofed stair tower. The building has ashlar multi-flue apex stacks, with the northern stack corniced and fitted with octagonal cans, while the southern stack is shared with a neighboring building and is corniced with tapered circular cans. There is an ashlar three-flue stack on the west pitch to the right of bay two, which is also corniced with octagonal cans, and a four-flue wallhead stack on the rear elevation with octagonal cans. A wing projects to the rear, featuring engaged columns and an entablature around a doorway that has been converted into a window.

Inside, the hotel has a glazed tripartite vestibule door and a dentilled cornice in the lobby. A four-storey timber main stair features turned balusters and square newels with caps and ball finials. There is also a lower flight of stone service stairs that remains, complete with a decorative cast-iron balustrade and a timber handrail.