House of dreams

Ardfin estate, Isle of Jura, Argyll and Bute, part II In the second of two articles, Clive Aslet examines how a Victorian shooting lodge on the southern tip of Jura has been reimagined as a modern country house

UNTIL 2009, Jura House, on the Isle of Jura's Ardfin estate, was a somewhat glum shooting lodge, originally built by William Burn in the 1830s and enlarged by Alexander Ross 50 years later. Its attraction was less the Victorian architecture, which had perhaps never been distinguished, but the exceptional landscape setting. Overlooking the mountains of nearby Islay, it commands glorious views over the constantly changing sea and shoreline. More than 10 miles of fretted coast is trimmed with beaches of grey sand that are inviting for rugged barbecues. Guns had been coming for generations to cull Jura's splendid stags, which can weigh 25 stone; shoot the dusk flights of woodcock as they emerge from woods to feed on pastureland; or even bag one of the island's colony of wild goats. In the summer, midges permitting, there were hill walks and trout fishing for the energetic, with, nearer the house, a large walled garden planted with tree ferns and other exotic species that can be grown on the west coast of Scotland, due to the gulf stream. What a place to holiday with young children.

Certainly, it caught the imagination of the present owner, for whom the spectacular views (Fig 1) more than made up for the rather forbidding character of the house. Initially, the decorator Louise Jones was asked to do little more than repaint the walls and recover the furniture. But the project grew. The owners found they liked Jura House so much that they wanted to share it with guests; by 2012, the architect Alireza Sagharchi of Stanhope Gate Architecture had been asked for a scheme that would completely reimagine the house, creating a new entrance on the landward side and adding a new wing to east and west.