We know what it’s like to buy a dream castle
When Brooke Shields’ character Sophie lands in Scotland, her taxi driver takes the scenic route through the Highlands’ winding forest roads and past some of the country’s most majestic lochs.
For the owners of Kilmartin Castle, Simon Hunt and Stephanie Burgon, the path she took looked very familiar. “The drive from the airport is literally the entire road to our castle, even along the banks of Loch Fyne and passing by Inveraray Castle. It feels like she’s driving to us,” said Hunt.
The couple were inundated with messages from friends and family when A Castle For Christmas dropped on Netflix to check if they had seen it yet. Despite the movie’s storyline seeming a little farfetched – an American visiting Scotland lands themselves a beautiful castle – it is not a million miles away from how the couple found their own Scottish castle.
“We had not been together very long, and after Christmas we decided to go for a road trip through Scotland. I am from Newcastle, Simon is from Australia. Despite the weather being horrible, we loved the west coast. We were living in Dubai where it was constantly hot and sunny, so we were really drawn to the wilderness and wildness of Scotland,” said Burgon.
A few months later, they came across an online article about a Scottish castle going up for sale, and a few jokes about buying it and bunking off to Scotland soon became serious. Burgon said: “I think we were at this golden moment in our relationship when someone suggests something, and the other one goes ‘yeah, OK!’ Our friends told us we were absolutely crazy and that it was a money pit.”
The couple decided to transform the castle into a luxury boutique B&B and worked to modernise the castle without losing any of its medieval charm.
At Christmas 2019, Hunt invited some of his Australian family over to stay, and they found themselves swept up in the romance of a real-life Christmas castle. Hunt said: “It was snowy and very Christmassy, and for an Australian that is really amazing. We just sit inside with the fire and put some records on, it feels really festive!”