Anja and Jan Jacob left the Netherlands for a new life in a characterful, treasure-filled house in the Scottish Highlands. Feature Chantal Hintze Photographs Ivar Janssen Production Features & More Styling Wilma Custers

By Christianne Raymer

Published: Wednesday, 26 April 2023 at 12:00 am

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We’re not the long-term planning types. We tend to go with the opportunities that present themselves,’ says Anja Baak, explaining how, 20 years ago, she and her husband Jan Jacob came to leave their home in the Netherlands in order to start a new life in the Scottish Highlands.

The first of these opportunities was a chance encounter with a fellow countryman, who had bought a Highland estate and offered Jan Jacob the job as his estate manager.

The couple leapt at the chance to embrace a more outdoorsy life in a less densely populated country, little knowing that it was the first step on the journey that would not only lead to the whitewashed cottage that is now their home, but also to a future business venture – Great Glen Charcuterie.

‘Even after all these years, I still get that wow feeling when I drive up to the house,’ says Anja, and it’s easy to see why – tucked away in the hills around Lochaber, with spectacular views of the surrounding countryside, the house sits in splendid isolation. Only those in the know venture up the gravel drive that leads to the front door.

Jan Jacob had known about the property for a while, having chanced upon it some years earlier while out walking. ‘He loved it so much that he immediately enquired about who owned it, only to be told they were definitely not going to sell,’ Anja recalls.

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But some years later, in 2010, when the estate changed hands for the third time, the couple decided it was time to focus on their own business, Great Glen Charcuterie, a small venture they had established as a sideline. However, giving up the job on the estate also meant giving up their home.

As luck would have it, a friend told them the house that was seemingly unobtainable had just come onto the market. They wasted no time and arranged to view it the next day – and found themselves moving in just three weeks later.

The property, designed by the architect Ian Gordon Lindsay, dates to 1937. Described as a cottage, the house is a mass of curious contradictions and feels far grander than one might expect. In addition, its wonderful features, such as the built-in bookcases and open fireplaces, make it feel older than it is.

All of this is a reflection of the architect’s desire to create a modest house in a baronial style. ‘The staircase was probably the thing that sold the house to us,’ says Anja. ‘It has such a castle-like feel.’

Since moving in eight years ago, the couple have created a home that combines this fortress-style splendour with bags of rustic charm. Today, for instance, the sweeping curve of the staircase is decorated with antlers from local roe deer.

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Wherever possible, Anja and Jan Jacob chose to retain the property’s original features, and fragments of the original decoration informed the choices they made when they came to update the interior.

While removing old wallpaper in the dining room, they discovered a layer of vibrant turquoise paint and decided to redecorate the room in a colour that was close to the original. Trying to maintain this sense of history, Anja made the curtains from a Morris & Co fabric designed at around the time the house was built.

‘We like timeless pieces that are well made,’ she says, pointing to their old leather sofa, which came with them from the Netherlands. Their furniture is a mix of pieces picked up at the local auction and things they have made for themselves, such as their bed and the dining table. ‘And I can never walk past a skip without peeping in,’ she laughs.

Renovating the property while also establishing their business has meant that some areas of the house have only just been finished. The vintage bath, which they acquired even before they’d bought the house, sat on the landing for several years before it was installed.

Anja and Jan Jacob have no regrets about moving to Scotland. And while the faint trace of an accent suggests they’ve come from afar, they are happy to call the Highlands their home.

More homes from Homes & Antiques

• A medieval Welsh hall house
• Rudyard Kipling’s secluded house in East Sussex
• A traditional 19th-century fisherman’s house on the Dutch coast
• A Georgian home in Lincolnshire

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