Homes
Inside couple’s gorgeous hideaway in the hills
The point in front of the house once formed one end of a “boom” across Loch Ewe to prevent Second World War German submarines entering. The foundations of the defence works can still be seen today. We live in Hampshire but love Scotland. Having a house here fulfilled a wish to design and build our own base north of the border.
It took us more than two years to find and buy the plot.
We saw it between Christmas and New Year. It was extremely cold and icy but we realised it was a great location – coastal and remote but not isolated – and south-facing with 180-degree views. The only thing on the site was a holiday caravan we decided to stay in while we were sorting planning permissions and builders.
The build took a year and it was ready to move into in 2013.
The house is contemporary, clad in larch with a steel roof. Inside, the open-plan living area has a corner made from glass to make the most of the superb views and sunsets.
There are three bedrooms. Downstairs there are two twins and one bathroom. Upstairs is a master double bedroom with en suite bathroom and TV room-office with a glass partition that looks down on to the main sitting area below. The
house also has an outside deck and impeccable green credentials with solar panels, air source heat pump, underfloor heating, a heat recovery system and great insulation. In fact, it is one of the very few silver-rated houses in the area.
A contemporary house required a contemporary interior, so we designed it ourselves.
We used a simple, neutral colour scheme enhanced by a lot of art (which we already owned), rugs and fabrics. The furniture is modern but comfortable – it’s a holiday home, not a show house! Because the exterior of the building is clad in larch, we wanted to use as many natural products as we could inside. So there is oak flooring throughout the main living area and bedrooms downstairs. The bathrooms have slate tiling on the walls and floors, and the kitchen island and sink area also has slate worktops.
Parasol Interiors in Inverness were a great help with curtain choices, particularly with the main bedroom window, which is triangular.
There were inevitable hitches along the way but the house is pretty much as we both envisaged it.
We’re not sure we would change very much. In fact, we have recently built ourselves a house down south, bigger than Boom House but incorporating a lot of the same designs. We love that our home in Scotland is not visible from the road and are thrilled it was designed so that, as it aged, the larch cladding faded to silver to blend with the steel roof. The house now sits seamlessly against the hillside and is almost invisible from the sea. The location is amazing. We love sitting watching the loch, especially in a storm.
It is a “weather theatre”, constantly changing. We love it so much we recently renovated nearby Rowantree Croft so we can use both as holiday lets and spend more time here ourselves. We plan to move here permanently in the not too distant future.