"If you find yourself driving along the banks of Loch Ness, you have missed the driveway!"
Fortunately, the rest of the written directions that had preceded this warning were excellent, and I hadn't missed the lane I was looking for, near Inverness, almost four hours north of Edinburgh in the Scottish Highlands. After following the narrow tree-shadowed drive for several miles, as directed, I came to my destination: Dochfour, a three-story ocher house where the Baillie family has lived within sight of the famous loch since the 1400s. (They've been in Scotland even longer: Guy de Baliol came over from Normandy with William the Conqueror in 1066.)
Soon after I rang the bell, I heard Gina Baillie, the lady of the house, calling to me from behind her ten-foot-high front door. "Do you like dogs?" she shouted. "You do? Oh, good!" Whereupon Gina, who turned out to be dark-haired and quite beautiful and to look ten years younger than her age (around forty), swung back the heavy panel. Two Labradors bounded out, all tongues and tails and flying paws, followed by the largest dog I have ever seen, a Great Dane as big as, well, a great Dane. Happily, this four-legged Loch Ness monster proved to be as gentle in temperament as she was in name. "That's Portia," said Gina, introducing me to the giantess sweetly snuffling my shoulder.
Welcome to the world of Scottish castles and houses — and the world of Loyd & Townsend-Rose, a four-person Scottish firm that rents out sixty of the country's most impressive private residences, as well as a white-gloved handful of similar properties in England, Ireland and France. Want to take twenty members of your family on an exceptional holiday? Take the board of directors over for meetings and memorable golf? Host a group of friends for shooting or fishing? Want to settle into a turreted fortress overlooking ancient parkland or facing the open sea? For between $40,000 and $70,000 a week (food and staff included), Loyd & Townsend-Rose sees to it that every client's home is literally a castle, at least for a few nights.
If you so desire, the company can serve as a traditional upscale-tour operator. It designs custom itineraries for city and countryside during which guests stay at such fine hotels as the Howard, in Edinburgh, and Kinnaird, in Perthshire, as well as such private clubs as Skibo Castle, in the Highlands; it also provides expert guides for any number of activities and interests. Nor are these services limited to Scotland; for a wine-loving Texas billionaire and his wife, Loyd & Townsend-Rose recently arranged a four-day itinerary in Bordeaux that included numerous tastings at first- and second-growth châteaus in the company of the vineyards' aristocratic French owners.
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