Florida, Hawaii, the Bahamas, Dubai… and Perthshire? Plans by American developers to turn historic Scottish castle into centrepiece of new ‘billionaires’ playground’ could leave locals out in the cold

• There is set to be a wholesale redraft of the Highland Perthshire village area

There is an eeriness about the village square in Kenmore – a discomfiting sense that, since it is deserted, perhaps you should not be there either.

A sign in the window of the tiny village square says closed. You cross to the Kenmore Hotel where, in the bar inside – reputedly Scotland’s oldest – Robert Burns penned a poem directly onto the wall in 1787. His verse can still be seen there, but not today. The building is closed.

A two-minute walk away, next to the beach on the east shore of Loch Tay, the Paper Boat café is also closed. Even the beach car park pay machines are out of action.

The Highland Perthshire village’s knockout tourist attraction is Taymouth Castle, an architecturally stunning pile set in 450 acres of park and woodland guarded by an imposing archway at one end of the square. Queen Victoria came here on her honeymoon.

The castle grounds are closed off too. A perimeter fence with ‘no entry’ signs leaves visitors in no doubt about that.

Investor: John Paul DeJoria and his wife Eloise Broady DeJoria

Taymouth Castle, built in 1806, is now undergoing a major £300million restoration project

Peak season at one of Scotland’s most scenically gorgeous and historically fascinating tourist spots and you would be forgiven for wondering if no one has told locals lockdown is over.

But Kenmore’s eerie atmosphere postdates the pandemic. It is the product of change – a wholesale redrafting of the area here to turn it into what critics describe as a ‘billionaires’ playground’.

At the conclusion of the £300million project, a 7,000-acre parcel of Scottish land will be unveiled as one of a US real estate company’s new ‘worlds’. Eyewatering sums will be required to buy into it.

Other ‘worlds’ – or ‘luxury lifestyle residential communities’, as the Discovery Land Company (DLC) also calls them – have sprung up in the dreamiest of locations in Florida, Hawaii, the Bahamas and Dubai, to name just a few.

READ MORE: Tiny Scottish village of Kenmore being ‘strangled’ by US developers

But the Perthshire ‘world’, with the magnificent Taymouth Castle as its centrepiece, is the first in the UK. It will have 167 new high-end properties for sale, each lining a private golf course which is currently being landscaped on the site of the old public one. It is understood that in time it will be seeded with the ‘American grass’ preferred by international visitors.

There will be a members-only clubhouse, restaurant, sports centre, equestrian centre and ‘wellness facility’. Part of neighbouring Glen Lyon estate will be included in the resort, for use as hunting and fishing grounds.

Some suggest the pick of the apartments in the castle itself is earmarked for billionaire Californian haircare magnate John Paul DeJoria, 79. The ponytailed tycoon is partnering DLC on the venture and is the main investor, though he has said little about his involvement.

But opinion on rural Scotland’s suitability as the setting for an ultra-exclusive enclave for the super-rich is sharply divided. And the opponents of the project are the noisier by far.

They bristle at the idea of a ‘gated community’ which keeps the ‘great unwashed’ off an estate they were previously free to access.

They baulk at the awesome buying power of DLC and rail about a ‘lack of clarity’ over what it now owns and what exactly it plans to do with it.

A key reason the shop, the hotel and the café are closed is DLC has bought up them all – as well as the castle, its grounds and a growing portfolio of the village’s cottages.

Stunning setting: Picturesque Kenmore on the banks of Loch Tay in Highland Perthshire

Development: Historic Taymouth Castle is the centrepiece of the £300million project

Kenmore in Perthshire, which is located next to Loch Tay, is pictured in its autumnal colours

Taymouth Castle in Perthshire has had previous uses as a wartime hospital and a drama school

Cher and Madonna were both said to have looked at purchasing Taymouth Castle (pictured)

All are part of its masterplan for the future.

Objectors living around Loch Tay have plans of their own. They are intent on fighting the international developer every step of the way.

A petition launched a fortnight ago calls on the Scottish Government to intervene and halt the project. It now has 20,000 signatures. The tiny settlement of Kenmore itself is home to just 100.

‘The developers are a group of American billionaires who specialise in gated “worlds” for the super-rich,’ says the petition. ‘This is not what Scotland is about. We don’t need an influx of American millionaires and their speed boats, water sports and helicopter taxis destroying our peaceful loch, which is enjoyed by not only local residents but tens of thousands of visitors every year – by way of fishing, walking canoeing, nature watching, sailing etc.’

Particular offence is taken at the sales brochure description of Scotland as an ‘untouched playground’. Hackles rise again at the blurb which points out Taymouth Castle is just a 30-minute helicopter flight from Edinburgh or Glasgow.

The petition argues this ‘treasured part of our Scottish heritage and culture’ should be preserved for all for generations to come, not hived off as a residential community for elites.

READ MORE: Scottish castle goes on the market for £30,000 – but it needs £12million worth of renovations

Its comments section is a window on the sense of outrage. The message that Scotland’s countryside belongs to the people appears repeatedly along with the view that gated communities for the rich should not exist in Scotland.

Ferocious though the opposition may be, it is far from unanimous among villagers here. The community council is broadly supportive of the plans, and claims Kenmore sorely needs revitalisation. This week it called out ‘ill-informed pressure groups’ whose voice ‘drowns out those of the local people who are most affected’ by the development.

Its chairman Peter Ely said: ‘While it is, of course, quite legitimate and understandable that people outside our community will have their own thoughts about the development, we think it most unfortunate and disturbing that so many unfounded rumours and scares, some quite ridiculous, have been put about and repeated by the media and others without any basis in fact.’

He is one of several in Kenmore who point out that many of those making most noise about DLC’s plans are not strictly local.

Taxi driver Rob Jamieson, who launched the petition, lives in Killin, a 17-mile drive away at the far end of the loch. Some feel his online campaign group Protect Loch Tay is intolerant of balanced perspectives. Indeed, there are members of another online group, Future of Kenmore, who believe their local issue is being hijacked.

Certainly, inside the village of Kenmore there is more circumspection among residents about the changes afoot on their doorstep than there is outside it. Many who do express a view prefer to remain anonymous.

The fabulous interiors of Taymouth Castle in Kenmore, which is now undergoing renovation

Kenmore Parish Church in Perthshire is seen surrounded by autumnal trees in October 2020

The village of Kenmore on the banks of Loch Tay in the Perthshire is seen in December 2015 

A print of Taymouth Castle, shown in the 19th century when it was visited by Queen Victoria 

‘I was born in the castle and I’ve lived in the village all my life,’ one pensioner tells me. ‘There’s no community here any more and there hasn’t been for several years. Everything’s shut down now.’

She adds: ‘If they’re going to create a gated community around the castle it won’t be for people like me. We’re on the outside of it.’

Mr Ely, who lives a few doors down, sees it very differently. He says the sense of community in the village has steadily eroded over the past decade or more, chiefly because the neighbouring estate has lain dormant, its castle empty and decaying. Kenmore was always an estate village, built to service the castle, he says. It is simply reverting to what it used to be.

‘People are calling it a dying village. It’s not dying now, but it was dying. If it had stayed as it was, we would just have disappeared into the ether.’

Far from strangling the village, he suggests, the hundreds of millions being spent on the luxury community nearby should breathe new life into it.

It is a view quietly echoed by several here but often lost in the sound and fury generated by the protesters. Mr Ely points out that villagers have been assured the shop and hotel will both reopen after refurbishments.

As for the cottages bought by DLC, they will be used as dwellings for those employed by the community once it is up and running. Yet there remains an intuitive distaste for the idea of a historic Scottish village becoming the service centre for a US brand name community of wealthy property owners.

One critic, who lives a few miles away and asked not to be named, says: ‘I think they’re going to hold it up as a model Scottish village in the Highlands but I don’t think it’s going to be owned by locals and it’s not going to be for the community either. I don’t see that many community benefits.

‘I haven’t any objection to anybody wealthy coming to live here but they’re not coming to live here, they’re coming to use facilities and not contribute to the community and that’s the objection to the gated community.’

Ultimately it may be the extent to which the new community can accurately be described as ‘gated’ that swings public opinion. Mr Ely believes Scotland’s public access laws will prevent DLC from cordoning off its entire community, even if it has been able to achieve such a thing in its overseas ‘worlds’. And yet, if anyone and his dog can blunder through the community how exclusive would it be?

Taymouth Castle is shown in a sketch from 1898. The castle was built in the early 19th century 

A man and his Great Dane at the opening of the salmon fishing season in Kenmore in 2020

 Anglers in the water after the opening of the salmon fishing season in Kenmore in 2020

How Cher, Madonna and Queen Victoria are all involved in the fascinating history of Taymouth Castle 

Taymouth Castle was originally constructed as Balloch Castle in 1552 for Sir Colin Campbell, the Laird of Glenorchy.

However it was reconstructed into the building which stands today in the 1830s by the Campbell family, with much of it hastily remodelled for Queen Victoria’s visit in 1842.

At the time the castle’s interior was filled with Renaissance woodwork, hand-painted murals and a staircase designed by famed plasterer Francis Bernasconi.

But the Campbells’ fortunes faded by the 20th century, and the castle was sold in the 1920s to become, briefly, a fashionable, high-end Hydro hotel, once visited by Prince and Princess Gin Ri of Korea.

The project faltered by the 1930s, however, and over the ensuring 50 years it passed through various hands before closing its doors in 1982.

After that, there were rumours that both Madonna and Cher were interested in buying it in the 1990s. 

But the castle was finally sold in 2005 for £12million to a building consortium which planned to turn it into a five-star hotel promising presidential suites, marble bathrooms and high-end cuisine.

However, the plan fell apart when the Four Seasons hotel chain dropped out of the project.

Taymouth then passed through a number of hands via off-shore companies – and by 2018, it was believed to be owned by Ali Ibrahim Dabaiba, the former chief of development for Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

Dabaiba was alleged to have invested money which the Libyan authorities alleged was stolen into a number of Scottish properties, including Taymouth.

Following a tax probe into the company behind the purchase, Companies House removed its listing and forced the firm into dissolution.

Then Discovery Land Company and Mr DeJoria got involved – although there was also controversy related to their purchase in 2018.

Lawyer Stephen Jones, who had been hired by DLC to front the purchase of the castle, was jailed last December for 12 years for fraud, following a dispute over millions of pounds of client funds intended to be used to purchase the castle.

The right to roam issue was a central theme at a public meeting in nearby Aberfeldy, which SNP politicians Pete Wishart MP and John Swinney MSP hosted this week. Such was the clamour to attend it that it had to be moved to a larger venue.

For his part, Mr Swinney described DLC’s communication on its plans as ‘woeful’ and said that must change immediately. He declared: ‘There can be no gated communities in Scotland.’

Mr Wishart told the meeting that DLC accepted it had ‘got communication badly wrong’ but now wanted to listen to the community.

When approached by the Mail, DLC acknowledged the concern over access but stopped short of confirming or denying that the community would be gated.

A spokesman said: ‘We are aware of our obligations to allow access through the estate. While core paths have been diverted for construction reasons, we are working with Perth and Kinross Council to agree appropriate future access.’

These will ‘potentially not mirror the exact paths as before’.

As to the claim that, in creating a playground for the super-rich, it is strangling a village community, the spokesman said: ‘The development will bring a variety of homeowners who will naturally support the local community.’

Of the hundreds already employed by it either directly or through subcontractors, 90 per cent were Scottish, said the firm.

The Kenmore Hotel was under renovation but would resume as a ‘quality business’ when work was complete. After restoration work, the shop – which was closed by a previous owner – will also be back in business by the end of the year, though it will no longer operate as a post office.

The Paper Boat café will also be reborn, but its redesign is at an early stage. Longer term projects include a new public restaurant and pub, although there are no details yet and the process of securing consents is likely to take up to two years.

On reflection, does the firm regret its use of the phrase ‘untouched playground’ to describe rural Highland Perthshire?

‘It’s a phrase to encapsulate the natural beauty of the surrounding area,’ said the spokesman.

DLC also owns the beach at Kenmore, which falls within the castle estate. It stressed that it would remain public.

But what of Taymouth Castle itself? The venue was a location used in the film Mrs Brown, starring Dame Judi Dench and Sir Billy Connolly. It was reputedly eyed up by both Cher and Madonna when it was on sale in the 1990s. Will there be any chance for the public to enjoy it once it is restored?

‘Future open days will be planned where proceeds will benefit charity,’ said DLC. Similarly, from time to time, charity events will be held on the golf course, allowing members of the public to play it.’

The controversy somewhat echoes another American billionaire’s vision of the Scottish countryside as a playground. Trump International Golf Links in Aberdeenshire has divided opinion ever since the future president purchased the Menie Estate in 2006.

In the opposition to both projects it is difficult to discern which emotion is the stronger – love of our rural treasures or hatred of moneyed entitlement.

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