Is Hope Lodge the future of Scottish luxury travel?

Hope Lodge. You’d be hard-pushed to imagine a greater name for a hotel that belongs to Europe’s largest conservation project – Wildland. The name was not dreamt up by a branding agency in a boardroom, though; it came with the land. Hope Lodge sits at the mouth of Loch Hope, into which the rain drains from Ben Hope, one of two almighty mountains that guard this last gasp of earth like sentinels, before the Sutherland coast drops into the sea at the very top of Scotland.

Check in to Hope Lodge, Wildland’s new jewel in the Highlands

Hope opened its doors gently in May and is the jewel in the crown of Wildland’s expanding hospitality group. Across three estates in Scotland, this portfolio now comprises numerous cottages, houses, a couple of larger lodges and Aldourie, a peach confection of a castle, resplendent with baronial charm, on the shores of Loch Ness. It’s no exaggeration to say that Hope has raised the bar for Scottish hospitality. Prior to its opening, the monied global traveller would be served in Scotland by the ‘glorious playground’ of Gleneagles and the Victoriana fantasy of The Fife Arms. With Hope, there now exists a different sort of hospitality that feels place-based and future-facing. Beyond Scotland, it is a new global benchmark that combines comfort and indulgence with environmental engagement in a way that manages to feel relaxing and fun. Staying at Hope is like being at the Very Best House Party. And the Scots are legendary for their house parties.

Conservation and hospitality are awkward bedfellows. The latter can too easily trample over the former, with small wellies and great expectations. Matters are more complex still here in Sutherland. The ‘wilderness’ is harrowed land whose population was brutally cleared in the 19th century by its former landowners, the Dukes of Sutherland, for more profitable sheep farming and then game hunting. It is frequently described by visitors as beautifully empty, but it is more fraught than wilderness waiting to be conserved or picnicked upon. Wildland’s founder is Anders Hoch Povlsen, the Danish owner of high street fashion empire Bestseller, who is now Scotland’s largest private landowner. Wildland’s conservation agenda is audacious and undeniably laudable. How could anyone argue otherwise? But there are paradoxical dichotomies at play that are also undeniable. Suffice to say: Hope Lodge is a lovely project, and a loaded one.

The main building at Hope is a refurbished and remodelled 1870s shooting lodge with seven bedrooms and several public rooms. The whole entity can be hired as a private let, or it can behave more like a hotel. There is a new two-bedroom cabin – An Cala - in the woods nearby and two (soon to be three) exquisitely restored cottages down by the river. On the other side of the road, reached via a tunnel, is a huddle of new buildings called The Clachan – Gaelic for small village – which is Hope’s nerve centre. Here you find staff accommodation, kitchen, shop, treatment rooms, gym and an epic underground car park to hide all vehicles. Guests arrive at The Clachan and are inducted into the Hope experience and Wildland mission, before being taken under the tunnel to their rooms in the lodge. Induction is important for orientation but also because Wildland has a 200-year commitment to regeneration of the land it owns, and the desire is that guests understand what this means. Hope is informally billed as a Highland Safari experience.

This may be why Hope’s interiors have been designed by South African studio Cécile & Boyd, whose work with Singita’s properties across Africa shifted the needle on safari lodge design. The design at Hope is a mood. It is not Scandi-Scot as Wildland’s other properties have propagated, variously. It isn’t very Scottish either. All manner of materials and textiles make for a layered atmosphere that swings from enveloping domesticity to soft utility. There’s a lot of stone, wood, leather and woven grasses. There are beautiful antiques, many of which are Scottish, some grand, some humble. Together they feel collected, alongside the books and objects, which ground the experience with the welcome texture of time. It is a soothing interior, and an extremely comfortable one. Gentle and otherworldly.

Joinery by Edinburgh-based Laurence McIntosh adds a crisp, contemporary warmth that lifts the potential dourness of the Victorian hunting lodge. ‘This is a sporting lodge, after all, not a country house,’ says Paul van den Berg from Cape Town, design director at Cécile & Boyd. ‘We wanted to pare it back and not decorate it, but celebrate the lodge and expose its beauty. Our goal is to immerse guests in Highland nature. None of the art has people or manmade structures in it.’ Don’t mention the clearances.

Behind the interior, there is an astonishing degree of integrity in the architecture, old and new. This has been masterminded by Edinburgh-based practice GRAS, with directors (also father and son) Nicholas and Gunnar Groves-Raines looking after the restoration and contemporary buildings respectively. ‘We’ve been working on this project for around 14 years,’ Gunnar explains. ‘My parents moved to Sutherland to be closer to it. My father is forensic when it comes to best practice, clambering over rooves to poke around leadwork details.’

Over two decades of collaboration, GRAS has matched Wildland’s commitment to landscape conservation in architecture, and Hope is the pinnacle of their relationship. ‘It is an extremely ambitious project,’ Gunnar says. ‘We have learnt a huge amount, with great trust and confidence from the client. Such is the scale here, the positive impact on the surrounding rural communities and economies has been real. There has been a lot of creative activity over the years in building crafts like slating, leadwork and stonework.’ It’s stone that sticks in the mind, a glowing grey that you find in walls and floors, indoors and out, throughout. ‘We brought the disused quarry that was on the site across the road back into use,’ Gunnar explains, ‘Hope sits within a geopark, famous for its Moine Schist, which is one of the oldest geological rocks in Europe. These buildings are very much of place.’ They will definitely last 200 years, and maybe many more.

Safari at Hope is about nature communing, more than wildlife spotting. Programming stretches across states of immersion that vary in their wildness from cerebral (the introductory lecture) to literal (cold water plunges before breakfast) via trails and hikes, paddle-boarding, waterfall and loch-side picnics, fishing, foraging, sauna and sound-bathing. On hand throughout are elegant dry robes - not an oxymoron - neoprene swimming shoes, hampers, snacks, fires and flasks of activity-appropriate drinks, all of which appear as if by magic. Service across the Hope experience is tip-top and straddles the potentially awkward gap between matronly host, geography teacher, new friend and camp leader. Not once did we think twice about stripping down to our trunks and sharing a picnic while asking about ticks.

All activities are marshalled by a team of guides, on whose shoulders rests Hope’s ambition to be more than a luxury hotel. Alongside the expertise of these guides, their hillside manner is critical, and they do a sterling job. It sounds pedantic to call out a somewhat casual attitude to Scottish history and politics, but it is important too. Hope will bring some of the world’s wealthier and more influential visitors to Scotland, and these guides will have a rare privilege to impart a lot more knowledge besides the lifecycle of a salmon (however fascinating and fitting a metaphor for life this may be).

And herein lies the crux: there’s something existential at play. Hope is more than a Scottish Safari lodge. Staying here will raise questions, naturally, for any guest interested in Scotland’s social, economic and political past, present and future. And while these issues shouldn’t be the first things guests at Hope learn about, neither should they be absent from the experience. After all, Hope is about relationships with reality. However luxurious, however enticing its offer of escape, however invigorating those plunges, ultimately this whole project is about engagement, with self and other, human and habitat. Beyond a picturesque spot to spend half term, Hope could just help guests figure out their place in the world. What could be more hopeful than that?

Hope Lodge is located at Altnaharra Road End, Lairg IV27 4UJ