A 600-Year-Old Money Pit in the Scottish Highlands
ISLE OF MULL, Scotland — Anyone who has despaired over home improvement should spare a thought for Sir Lachlan Hector Charles Maclean of Duart and Morven.
The Scottish lord has been repairing his home since he inherited it from his father in 1990, with no end in sight.
His is no ordinary house. Rather, it is a crumbling 14th-century castle — with a dungeon — that has collapsed ceilings and rainwater seeping through its 16-foot-thick walls pretty much all of the time — even during summer, which can be exceedingly wet and blustery in Scotland.
The cost of repairs? So far, 1.5 million pounds, or $1.94 million, and counting.
Located on the Isle of Mull, off the western coast of Scotland, his home, Duart Castle, is the ancestral seat of the Macleans, one of the oldest clans in the Scottish Highlands. The 74-year-old chatelain’s ancestors have been involved in centuries of battles pitting Catholics against Protestants and the Scottish against the English in rivalries that still resonate.
“What does one do with a property like this?” Sir Lachlan, the 28th chief of the clan, asked rhetorically one recent afternoon as he sipped tea in his living room, probably one of the snugger parts of the castle where he and his wife, Rosie, have retreated, though it was still mildly damp with a whiff of stale curry.
Strong rains lashed against the windows, and the constant buzz of drilling forced him to speak up. The Macleans’ private living room was cluttered with modern bric-a-brac while, just below, tourists tramped about in the stately banquet hall looking at clan paraphernalia and trying to locate a public toilet. There are, in fact, two toilets, but they are both unusable — one put in nearly a century ago, and another 600 years ago.'>>>
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/31/world/europe/isle-of-mull-scotland-maclean-duart-castle.html?
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