Njord House

Built around one view

Njord House faces the sea loch and very little else. The living, dining, and kitchen space runs as one room behind glazing that reaches the ceiling, so the water and the islands beyond it sit in front of you wherever you are. Oak floors and a pale corian kitchen keep the room quiet enough that the weather does the work.

It is built for two adults and the owners hold that line. One bedroom, one bathroom, no children, and no pets, which they put down to the design rather than to policy. There are no visitors either, day or overnight.

Heating is underfloor, run from what the owners describe as a sustainable heat system, and a wood burning stove covers the dark half of the year, with logs supplied October through to March. The kitchen is set up for actual cooking, and the store cupboard arrives with the things you would otherwise buy and then carry home again, such as cooking oil, salt and pepper, tea, and coffee. Bed linen, towels, and cleaning products are provided.

Claigan is a long way round from the bridge, so the notes the owners send after booking cover where to buy fuel and groceries on the way in, plus their own list of places to eat and walk.

Good to know

Features

Location

Where it puts you

The house sits between the two things most people drive up this side of Skye for. Dunvegan Castle is at the near end, the seat of Clan MacLeod, with formal gardens along the shore of the loch. Coral Beach is at the far end of the same road, and its white sand is crushed shell rather than coral, which is why it holds its colour in flat light.

Dunvegan village has the shops and the fuel, and the owners point guests at the Two Churches walk there, a woodland route most visitors drive past. Neist Point and the Fairy Pools are day trips rather than evening ones, which is the honest way to describe Skye distances in summer.