Skibo Castle

A Majestic Jewel in the Scottish Highlands.

- Anthony DeMarco

Entering the Carnegie Club at Skibo Castle in a chauffeur driven Range Rover you get the feeling of what it was like to live in a time when royalty truly ruled the Scottish Highlands.

A stone wall reveals a manicured front lawn large enough to play cricket, which it is sometimes used for. It’s ringed by golden strands of tall fescue that looks like wheat and large full trees—a rarity in this part of Scotland where much of the land has been clear cut. It leads to the circular driveway of a magnificently restored castle with a most unusual marking: a flag with one side boasting the Union Jack of the United Kingdom and the other side bearing the Stars and Stripes of the U.S. There is perhaps no place on earth that flies a flag with this combination and it required special permission of local Scottish authorities and the U.S. government. It refers mostly to the former and current owners of the castle.

Records of Skibo Castle date back to the early 13th Century, however, its modern transformation began when wealthy Scottish-American industrialist, Andrew Carnegie, purchased the 8,000-acre estate as a family residence in 1898. Today it is owned by Ellis Short, an Irish-American businessman. He reportedly purchased the property in 2003 for £23 million ($30 million) and has since invested another $27 million to modernize and restore the castle and grounds. It is still a work in progress but you couldn’t tell by Skibo’s majestic beauty.