Ultra-Luxury Resort Planned For Scotland

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Aug 5th 2009 at 11:01AM

The Yellowstone Club may have recently been surrendered to new owners but the dream of creating an exclusive and luxurious resort lives on and this time it's coming to the land of links and lochs. The Dall House is a £1.2 billion resort to be located near Kinloch Rannoch, Perthshire. The resort is targeted at individuals of extremely high net worth, with assets of £100 million. The club will cost £2 million to join with annual fees of £500,000, and rooms starting at £6,000 per night. The property will include a luxury hotel, plastic surgery clinic, spa, two golf courses, shops, a restaurant and 98 houses.

The property was formerly in use as the Rannoch School which was closed in 2002. It was bought by Malcolm James Developments and has been recently enjoyed as a private home. The property's renovation should take three years and could create as many as 2,200 jobs. The proposals for planning permission will go before the Perth and Kinross councillors in mid-September.

UPDATE: One of Scotland's conservation charities, The John Muir Trust has submitted a formal objection to the development citing fears that it would have a negative impact on the local wildlife and scenic beauty.

Tags: dall house, DallHouse, perthshire, resort, scotland

Filed under: Real Estate Developments

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Goto98 Aug 5th 2009 1:38PM

I can’t help but feel like they are making a classic mistake with this one. Those fees are astronomical even for someone worth 100 mil. Unless they only need 5 members to break even I would venture that this one is destined to failure.

Wally Aug 5th 2009 3:07PM

I think you are right about it failing.

Matt S Aug 21st 2009 12:07PM

I think one needs only look at Peter De Savary's Cherokee Plantation in South Carolina for a clue. Cherokee has been marketing a very similar concept (except initiation is only a pawltry $1M) and has so far in the only 5+ years of marketing, including during the biggest real estate boom in history, to sign up 8 of his friends. My firm has been working with a billionaire who owns his own private Jack Nicklaus course, to create a similar concept. BUT, there is no plans for an outrageous initiation fee, each of the 40 members real estate purchases covers the lionshare of the 'initiation cost'. The unknown is of course how the potential owners will respond to the maintenance expense, and are these members really willing to step up to the table to 100,000+ annual dues. In our experience, asking someone for a few million for a frivolous purchase is easy compared to the ability to ask for a recurring monthly expense that reminds them every month how frivolous they are really being. We don't have proof yet, stay tuned. They way we approach these sorts of communities when we develop/market them, and the way Dall House has already made their mistake, is to keep the community invisible until it is already a success in the market place. You can even do that during entitlement phase, and it works in your favor.

The classic mistake people make in positioning 'small, exclusive' communities is forgetting that those who really desire the highest level of privacy and exclusivity don't want neighbors and are seeking this sort of lifestyle will go and buy their own private golf course (it is more common than most people know) or alternatively that they don't mind a few more people around as the place has some vitality to it, which really does require a larger group. It also lowers expenses, and this is a welcome benefit. It is essentially the conclusion that Tim Blixseth refused to acknowledge and now Discovery Land, and their investor who now owns Yellowstone Club, have come to realize.