A former youth hostel beside Loch Lomond has gone on the market with an asking price of nearly £4m.
Auchendennan House opposite Duck Bay was closed by the Scottish Youth Hostel Association in 2012, and the following year was sold for £1.385m
Now the A-listed baronial castle has been put on the market again, this time with estate agents Strutt & Parker asking for offers over £3,750,000.
With 15 bedrooms, two turrets and sitting in 55 acres of parkland and woods, Auchendennan House has views across Loch Lomond.
A landmark on the A82, it has secure gates fitted with a telephone entry system and a driveway which incorporates a carriage turning circle.
There is also a gym and a vaulted staircase – the estate agents say: “The exceptional interior is impressive with a wealth of craftsmanship from original floors and wallpaper, intricate plasterwork and timber panelling; this level of detail is replicated as you travel through the house.
“The grand hall acts as the gateway to some of the most impressive rooms including, the library renowned for its Charles Rennie Mackintosh design, a modest designer kitchen and breakfast room, a corridor leading to a double bedroom, bathroom, utility and conservatory (growing a vast number of plants, together with olive trees, tea trees and grape vines), a ballroom (used as a large office) and an impressive dining room adjoined through internal sliding doors to the drawing room, complete with its own turret.
“The current vendor purchased Auchendennan in 2013, and has comprehensively and sympathetically restored the castle’s interior to create an extraordinary private home which combines all of the grandeur and detailing of its 19th century heritage with services, systems, fixtures and fittings which provide exceptional comfort and quality of living.”
Auchendennan House was commissioned in the 1860s by Glasgow merchant George Martin, and was designed by John Burnet from Glasgow.
It was altered in the 1900s by the then owner at the time William Chrystal – the architect was Alexander Nisbet Paterson, whose additions include the Porte Cochere of Scottish Renaissance design, and large parts of the interior.
The agents add that although Auchendennan is currently a private house, there is ‘scope for it to be run as a hotel/wedding venue or for a range of other commercial or quasi-commercial uses, subject to the necessary consents’.
My husband and I stayed at this Youth Hostel in August 1964, after we were married.
stayed there while hiking in 1965
Yup that was the 60s when you had to do a chore when leaving or you wouldn’t get your membership card back. Remember filling all the coal scuttles one morning before breakfast 😂