Two hours beyond Inverness, along single-track roads that eventually give up on signs of civilisation, sits Hope Lodge — an 1867 shooting lodge in Sutherland at the mouth of Loch Hope, just shy of Ben Hope. It's about as far north as the UK goes, and it's just opened after fifteen years of planning and eight years of design work.

The lodge belongs to WildLand, the conservation project of Danish billionaire Anders Holch Povlsen and his wife Anne, Scotland's largest private landowners with around 89,000 hectares across Sutherland, the Cairngorms and Loch Ness. Their long game is ecological: undoing centuries of land management and regenerating native woodland over the next 200 years. Hope is their most ambitious hospitality project yet, joining a collection that includes Lundies House, Kinloch Lodge and Aldourie Castle.

The restoration, led by Cécile & Boyd — the studio behind Singita's safari lodges — is deliberately free of tartan and Gothic frippery. Original ironmongery, skirting boards and creaking pine floors survive, while hand-stitched hessian wall coverings, tan leather and natural timber pull the colours of the moor indoors. Scottish craftspeople made much of it, and the four-month installation had seamstresses, artists and joiners living on site.

Guests get the run of the place. There's a fire-lit boot room for shedding muddy kit, a whisky bar and pool table downstairs, and — best of all — a lounge carved into the rock beneath the lodge by Edinburgh architects GRAS, all glass walls, an iron-and-stone fireplace and a bird's-nest chandelier. Sleep options include rooms in the main house or An Cala, a two-bedroom timber-and-glass cabin built on the footprints of old barns, complete with a hot tub, a wooden bath modelled on a livestock-washing bucket, and a basin shaped like a stone trough.

Food follows your mood rather than a menu — think roast chicken and crumble on the terrace, or caviar with chips, langoustines cooked over open fire, scallops in the shell. The standout meals happen outdoors: a lunch table laid beside a waterfall after a heather hike, blankets and cookies after a swim on a deserted beach, impromptu afternoon tea with warm scones on a secluded headland.

Days are shaped by the landscape rather than a schedule. The estate lends you Le Chameau wellies and a guide with a working spaniel; there's paddleboarding when conditions allow, and the coast delivers dolphins, porpoises and, with luck, whales. Rain is part of the deal — one of the architects behind the rock lounge insists the wildest weather is when you truly understand the place.

Practically speaking: Hope operates as a whole-property private hire from November to April, then runs as a hotel from May to August. It suits travellers who want Scotland at its most remote without roughing it — walkers, wildlife spotters, and groups after an exclusive-use Highland base. It's a serious splurge, but you're essentially renting the top of the country.

Story via Elite Traveler.