Country Life Magazine (September 20, 2023) – Kilravock Castle is located in the Highlands, in the storied estate in the scenic Nairn Valley. The estate centres on the Category A-listed Kilravock Castle, the original seat of the Clan Rose, which dates from about 1460, when the 7th Baron built the original keep under license from John, Lord of the Isles and Earl of Ross.
The lands had been acquired in the 13th century by Hugh Rose of Geddes, and were held by the family for the best part of 800 years before being bequeathed in 1984 by Elizabeth Rose, 25th Baroness of Kilravock (pronounced ‘Kilrorke’) to the aforementioned Kilravock Christian Trust.
Various additions were built on over the years, including the main house in 1553. The main staircase, corridors and west wing were added in the 18th century. The last major alteration, the construction of an additional tower, took place in 1926.
Country Life Magazine (September 15, 2023) – The writer John le Carré‘s impossibly romantic house has come to the market, set in a position as dramatic as anything to be seen in fiction.
In the late 1960s, the author John le Carré (born David Cornwell, but forbidden from writing under his own name when employed by MI5 and MI6) was staying with an old friend, the Cornish artist John Miller. Miller lived in a house in West Penwith in Cornwall’s far west, on a sparsely populated peninsula ringed by high cliffs and surrounded on three sides by the Atlantic Ocean.
One day, when walking along the cliffs at Tregiffian, near the village of St Buryan, le Carré passed three derelict fisherman’s cottages and a barn overlooking the coast between St Loy and Lamorna. He fell in love with the place.
Armed with the proceeds of The Spy Who Came in From The Cold (1963), the second of his bestselling espionage novels set against the backdrop of the Cold War, le Carré tracked down the owner of the property, a local farmer, and bought the cottages, together with 27 acres of land, including a mile of coastline, much of which he later donated to the National Trust.
Over the years, le Carré and his wife, Jane, restored and adapted the cottages and outbuildings into the comfortable, but unpretentious coastal retreat that was to be their family home for more than 40 years, until his death, from pneumonia, in December 2020. Jane died from cancer two months later, in February 2021.
National Trust (August 23, 2023) – A behind the scenes at Belton House in Lincolnshire, built between 1685 and 1687 by Sir John Brownlow, which is looked after by the National Trust.
A filming location for Queen Charlotte: a Bridgerton Story, this 17th-century home has been used as a set for many popular TV series and movies. Belton can be seen in the 1995 production of Pride and Prejudice starring Colin Firth and, most recently, has featured as King George III’s palace in the Bridgerton universe.
Along with a tour of some familiar scenes from the silver screen, you’ll take a closer look at a jewel in the furniture collection – a one-of-a-kind lapis lazuli cabinet. A deep blue gemstone, lapis lazuli has been used as decoration for centuries – perhaps most notably in the funerary mask of Tutankhamun. For a cabinet to be almost entirely covered in the material makes it an extremely rare object.
Romolini – Christie’s Real Estate (August 17, 2023) – In the heart of Venice, a stone’s throw from the Peggy Guggenheim Collection and the Basilica of Santa Maria della Salute, Ca’ Dario is one of the most famous historic buildings overlooking the Grand Canal.
A masterful example of the Venetian Gothic style mixed with Renaissance elements, the palace is an imposing building of 1,000 sqm on five floors embellished with original decorations and unique elements. The hidden gem of the palace is the 170-sqm private garden at the back of the building.
THIS 500-YEAR-OLD VENETIAN GOTHIC PALACE, also known as Ca’ Dario, has claimed a host of unlucky victims, including the rich and famous. It’ said that the people who owned the building or stayed there for more than 20 days died, committed murder, or became bankrupt. Even local fisherman don’t dare cast their ropes by the cursed palazzo, which has been dubbed “the house that kills.”
The house was built in 1479 for aristocrat Giovanni Dario. His daughter Marietta and her husband Vincenzo later inherited the house. Vincenzo was stabbed to death, and Marietta died by suicide in the Grand Canal not long after. Shortly after these tragedies, their son Vincenzo Jr. was killed in Crete by assassins.
DW Documentary (August 11, 2023) – Taiwan is a place of incredible variety. The tiny island’s natural beauty is a concentration of some of Asia’s most spectacular features. To the east, there are sheer cliffs with mountain peaks, plateaus and hot springs. To the south, you’ll find sandy beaches, coral reefs and lagoons.
Although the Taiwanese live in a high-tech world, they are still firmly anchored by ancient traditions. During the course of his life, Lin Liang-tai has created many elaborately adorned wooden boats. But they’re not built to last, as they’re destined for Taiwan’s legendary Wang Ye Festival. As part of the temple ceremony to honor the goddess of the sea, a 10-meter boat is blessed, loaded with offerings and pulled through the village down to the beach.
There, it’s set alight, burning any evil spirits that might be lurking about the place. Shrimps are all the rage in Taiwan. In large halls across the entire island, shrimps can be fished out of huge tanks and put straight on the barbecue. Zhan Jia-ming runs one of these popular shrimp halls, and tips bucketloads of fresh shrimps into the tanks every hour. Oysters are a mainstay of Taiwanese cuisine, whether boiled, fried or made into oyster sauce. On the west coast, oyster farms sustain entire village communities.
In Fangyuan, we see one oyster farmer still using traditional methods to harvest his oysters. He drives ox-drawn carts onto the tidal flats, just as it has been done for generations. In the fishing village of Dongshi, several tons of oysters are harvested, opened and processed every day. Taiwan’s relations with the mainland have often been strained since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. Beijing regards the island as part of its territory. Tensions have been on the rise in recent times.
Tsai Jin-lu is a committed birdwatcher. For years, he’s documented his rare bird sightings in the Aogu Wetlands Forest Park on the western coast of Taiwan. But these days, his binoculars are frequently trained on something much bigger, up in the skies above. That’s because this is where the Taiwan carries out fighter jet exercises almost every day.
I adored Niklas Natt och Dag’s brilliantly cynical debut, The Wolf and the Watchman, and The City Between the Bridges is just full of filth and cynicism, the perfect combination for depicting the late 18th century and its terrible iniquities. The watchman of The Wolf and the Watchman returns to solve a new crime, this one the brutal murder of a tenant’s daughter on the eve of her wedding to a seemingly sensitive nobleman. Natt och Dag is particularly adept at savagely ripping the notion of a “civilized age” apart and showing the raw suffering underneath. As a side note, I’ve long believed that historical fiction is only to be trusted when the author is willing to describe bad smells to set the scene, and this book is full of truly disgusting odors.
Set in the dying colonial era, Kevin Jared Hosein’s searing debut examines race, class, and decolonization through the lens of two families, one white and wealthy, the other Black and disenfranchised, as their lives become ever more entwined after the disappearance of the white family’s patriarch. Like the best historical fiction, Hungry Ghosts is immersed in the ideas and complexities of its’ shifting time period, for a triumph of well-researched storytelling.
In one of those amazing life twists that feels as bizarre as it is inspiring, Tara Ison, the writer of the cult hit Don’t Tell Mom The Babysitter’s Dead has crafted one of the best tales of collaboration ever written. In Between the Hour of Dog and Wolf, Tara Ison takes us into the mind of an adolescent Jewish girl being hidden with a French family during WWII. She spends so much time pretending to align with the ideals of the occupiers that she finds herself beginning to agree with them, in what reads as a Jewish version of Lacombe, Lucien. Perhaps it’s not such a twist—both book and film are about the ways we assume new roles when necessary to survival, whether that’s taking a job as a fashion consultant to feed siblings and putting on a batshit fashion show (a la Babysitter) or pretending to be a fascist to to protect from others knowing that you are Jewish. Okay, maybe that last comparison is a bit of a stretch, but still, everyone should read this book and also everyone should should rewatch that movie.
Bret Easton Ellis is back, this time with a new serial killer novel that brings together all the best aspects of Less Than Zero and American Psycho. It’s 1981, Missing Persons is playing on the stereo, and future writer Bret is doing bumps with his prep-school friends by the poolside, dressed sharply in Ralph Lauren, as a killer makes his way closer and closer to their wealthy enclave. Ellis’ teenage emotional truths collide with violent fictional set-pieces for an epic tale of Southern Californian sins.
Wall Street Journal (July 18, 2023) – The Towie Barclay Castle in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, once visited by the late Queen Mother, has all the features of a traditional castle like shot holes, gun loops and stone walls.
Video timeline:0:00 Towie Barclay 1:32 Entry, kitchen and dining 2:48 The Great Hall 3:56 The library 4:54 The garden 6:39 Maintaining the castle
The 2.7-acre castle grounds, also includes a walled garden, gardener’s cottage and carriage rooms. But it’s also a family home that was purchased by a husband and wife for £4,000 in 1972. Homeowner Karen Ellington opens up the castle doors to share the restoration journey from ruin to refuge.
Romolini – Christie’s Real Estate (July 14, 2023) – This restored hamlet is located in the Chianti hills, in an outstanding and very panoramic position in the heart of the Tuscan countryside. Finely restored by the current owners, the property is a real gem that embodies all the typical characteristics of Tuscan rustic buildings.
Most of the buildings have already been restored and include, at the moment, 17 beautiful bedrooms and elegant living areas. By completing the renovation of the other farmhouses one could reach a grand total of 26 bedrooms. The property’s 15.3 hectares of land are home to a beautiful Italian garden and olive grove.
Architectural Digest (July 6, 2023) – A tour of Denham Place, a 17th-century country estate situated just 30 minutes from central London. Built in 1688, this historic property is on the market for £75,000,000 and has just completed an extensive 8-year restoration.
An incredible 12 reception rooms, 12 bedrooms, 14 bathrooms, and grounds inspired by Versailles, make this stately home palatial–and with past residents including the Bonaparte Imperial family, it is a house truly fit for royalty.
The house was constructed in 1688–1701 for Sir Roger Hill, and the architect was probably William Stanton.
Massimo Nalli Films (June 19, 2023) – Split, Italian Spalato, seaport, resort, and chief city of Dalmatia, southern Croatia. It is situated on a peninsula in the Adriatic Sea with a deep, sheltered harbour on the south side.
A major commercial and transportation centre, the city is best known for the ruins of the Palace of Diocletian (built 295–305 CE). Collectively with the historic royal residences, fortifications, and churches in the city, the palace was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1979.
From 812 Split developed as a major Byzantine city. In 1105, after brief incursions by Venice (998) and Croatia (1069), the city acknowledged the nominal suzerainty of Hungary-Croatia and fought sporadically with its rival Trogir; from 1420 to 1797 it was held by Venice. The Austrians ruled from 1797 to 1918 with a brief French interregnum in 1808–13. Split became part of Yugoslavia in 1918 and of independent Croatia in 1992.
News, Views and Reviews For The Intellectually Curious
Romolini – Christie’s Real Estate
Literary Hub (August 9, 2023) – 
Wall Street Journal
Boomers Daily 