coast LIVING
A new build and a new business came with a dash of serendipity for Murray and Lorna Gray when Murray decided to abandon city commuting and the couple followed their hearts back to the Isle of Skye
From their self-built home on the Isle of Skye’s Waternish Peninsula, Murray and Lorna Gray have front-row seats to some of the island’s most spectacular natural wonders. On a still summer morning, the glassy waters of Loch Bay beneath them are disturbed only by the occasional leaping dolphin or porpoise as it goes along its way. Other days, the banks are alive with resident otters and, in winter, herds of deer visit the garden while the dark skies above serve as an ever-changing canvas for northern lights and vast, majestic sunsets. Here, both golden and white-tailed eagles are free to soar, fish and make their nests in the adjacent cliffs, which face out across the Minch to the islands of the Outer Hebrides.
Murray and Lorna first clapped eyes on this exact spot nearly 35 years ago when they spent their honeymoon in Stein, the historic fishing village that sits below their property. As they grew a family in their home in Perthshire, Skye became a go-to when Murray sought to escape the bustle of city working and reset in the wilderness. So, in 2013, when the couple learnt of an opportunity to build a house and self-catering retreat on their dream plot on the island, practical sensibilities were underpinned with a certain sense of destiny.
‘In our family home we always had a picture of the view and it’s a weird thing that 30 years later we are living in exactly the same spot,’ says Murray, who was keen to swap a high-pressured job as a sales director with the gentler rhythms of island life. ‘When we saw the site going up for sale it felt like an easy decision, but also quite a gamble as the land was so steep. We knew that we needed to try and achieve a balance between comfort and the practicalities of living in a wild space, however the beauty of building from scratch is that we could try to tailor everything around the views and the natural landscape that surrounded us.’
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The Grays’ previous house was a Scandinavian kit build w
