Tay Hotel, 26-42 Whitehall Crescent, Dundee

The Tay Hotel, located at 26-42 Whitehall Crescent, Dundee, was designed by Robert Hunter and built in 1899. This five-storey hotel, with a double attic and basement, occupies a prominent corner site, displaying a convex facade to Whitehall Crescent and a lower elevation to Dock Street.

The building is constructed of sandstone ashlar with a grey slate Mansard roof. The Whitehall Crescent elevation features a corniced ground floor, a banded first floor, continuous cills to upper floors, and a lintel band to the first and second floors. A richly detailed main cornice sits above the third-floor windows, incorporating a fluted lintel frieze and dentil course, and is complemented by a corniced wallhead and blocking course. Pilastered angles are present, with paired pilasters flanking three of the curved bays to the right. Windows are a mix of single and bipartite designs. The first floor has transomed and mullioned windows with moulded and chamfered jambs and blind open-work aprons. The second floor's windows are architraved and pilastered, with triangular pediments over the single windows and segmental pediments over the bipartites. Balconies are located at the centre window and at the first bays from the left and right. The third floor has colonette mullions and jambs with mannered pilasters. The fourth floor features lugged architraves, while dormers are pedimented or box-shaped, all fitted with two-pane timber sash and case windows. Corniced wallhead stacks incorporate windows, with additional ridge stacks.

The Dock Street elevation exhibits a similar treatment, with a corniced ground floor, banded first floor, continuous cills to the first and fourth floors, a corniced wallhead, and blocking course. The windows are similarly detailed.

The Whitehall Crescent elevation includes shopfronts on the ground floor, a canted window at the centre of the first floor, flanked by four bipartite windows to the left and right, followed by a sequence of bipartite and single windows on the upper floors. Paired wallhead stacks are centrally positioned, incorporating three windows and flanked by two dormers, with further wallhead stacks and dormers to the left and right.

The gusset elevation has three bays, the centre bay projecting and rising to six storeys, topped with a rectangular-domed roof and a finialled, pagoda-like cap. A moulded depressed-arch doorcase, featuring an anta and flanking paired pilasters (with modern glazed doors), is centrally located. Curved windows are positioned to the right and left, with one having been altered. A four-light canted window spans the first to third floors, with balconies on the first and second levels. Cross-windows are present at the first floor, while single windows are situated at the second and third floors. The fourth floor features a tripartite window flanked by single windows, and the fifth floor has a tripartite window flanked by round-headed dormers.

The Dock Street elevation has various openings to the basement and ground floor, a central first-floor window flanked by a bipartite, single, and canted window, and nine windows spanning the second to fourth floors. Three pedimented dormers and three wallhead stacks, each incorporating two windows, are also present, with box dormers above.

The interior of the hotel was not inspected.