Bob Dylan has a strong affinity to Scotland. In his 1997 song titled ‘Highlands’, he famously sang: ‘My heart’s in the Highlands wherever I roam / That’s where I'll be when I get called home’. Dylan also owns an honorary doctorate from the University of St Andrews and has long spoken of his debt to Scottish folk music.
So it makes a heck of a lot sense that Dylan owns a property in the land of whiskey and bagpipes. But not for much longer, it seems. Aultmore House, an estate that has been owned by Dylan for the past 17 years, is now on the market.
Set within Cairngorms National Park, the estate enjoys impressive views over Abernethy Forest and the Cairngorm mountains.The main building houses 16 bedrooms, 11 bathrooms, four reception rooms, two kitchens, a butler’s pantry, an office and, obvs, a music room. It covers 24 acres that includes woodlands, walled gardens, a croquet lawn plus three cottages currently being used as holiday lets and a gate lodge. It’s on the market for £3 million, which, all things considered, might actually be a bit of a steal.
The house was originally built between 1911 and 1915 and commissioned by Archibald Merrilees, the son of a Scottish merchant who co-founded Russia’s first department store in the mid-nineteenth century. It was sold in 1922 after the family’s fortunes were impacted by the Russian revolution.
Since then Aultmore has been everything from a B&B and a wedding venue to a World War Two convalescent hospital and a finishing school owned by a New Zealand-born spy who survived imprisonment in Colditz. The place underwent major restoration in 2000 before being sold to Dylan in 2006. Apparently, the Nobel Prize winner is waving goodbye to the mansion because he hasn’t used it as much since the pandemic.
See yourself as Aultmore House’s proud new owner? Or maybe you just want to dream a little? The property is being sold by Knight Frank Estate Agents and you can check out more information here.
ICYMI: behold, this is the UK’s museum of the year for 2023.