A sporting estate and a fine A-listed mansion at Ardmolich at the head of Loch Moidart in the West Highlands, Kinlochmoidart House was built in 1884 at a cost of £9048 in a tidy form of the Scots Baronial style and comprises three storeys with a basement and attic. Described in the Buildings of Scotland as a tautly vertical apparition, the house was designed by Glasgow-based architect William Leiper (1839 - 1916). Built in grey local whinstone, with dressings of red Ballochmyle sandstone, it features towers with grey-slated conical caps, prominent crow-step gables and large chimney-stacks.
The interior blends Jacobean with Arts & Crafts and includes original panelled ceilings, tiling, wallpaper and paint work, all painstakingly restored in 1989. A wood-panelled hall leads to a spacious and elegant drawing room with Neo-Jacobean chimney-piece, and a dining room, with seating for 18. There is also a large billiard room. Bathrooms feature original Victorian and Edwardian-style fittings.
The estate extends to 2023 ha (5000 acres). It was once much larger and the property of the MacDonalds of Clanranald, but passed to their kinsmen the MacDonalds of Kinlochmoidart in 1593. It was inherited by the Robertson-MacDonalds in 1804 but was sold out of the family in 1883. It was bought by the Glasgow-based distiller Robert Stewart, who paid £35,000 for an estate which then encompassed 6070 ha / 15000 acres, and it was him who commissioned Kinlochmoidart House. The property remains in the Stewart family. Today, the estate includes the salmon fishing on 3 miles (5 km) of the River Moidart, together with trout fishing on hill lochs.
