Fire
The searing heat of a fire is associated with destruction, but also with forging new beginnings from the flames...
In my family ‘the fire’ generally means the fire that destroyed our holiday home, the Log House, in 2018. I was pregnant when it happened. I will never forget my friend checking I was sitting down before she told me the news over the phone. It was such a shock, I couldn’t process it. I just crawled into bed, under a fusty blue blanket, and cried. It was not until much later that I understood what the fire had taken away, and much, much later that I understood what would grow from the ashes.
Over the next two years, my first baby, my second book and my partner’s engineering degree we somehow managed to build a new holiday home, Ben Damph Lodge. I remember standing beneath the timber frames in the living room and realising all I had sacrificed for this house, it has become part of the story of my life, and yet, in a moment, it could be lost in a fire. Again, I felt that overwhelm in the face of nature and the destructive forces that can take away everything you have in a matter of hours. I think then I understood a little of how my father must have felt to lose the Log House.
Under the Douglas Fir beams at Ben Damph Lodge
Duncan bought Ben Damph Estate in 1983 and built the ‘New Lodge’ in 1992 as the centre for a working estate and his dream hunting lodge. Like many dreams, he had nurtured this one since childhood when he visited a log cabin in Norway. He had never forgotten that experience and wanted to recreate the cosiness of a home made entirely of wood in the Highlands of Scotland. He bought over French Canadian craftsmen and felled wood on the estate, 100-year-old Scots pine, Douglas Fir and European larch, to build a traditional structure. It soon became the ‘Log House’ loved by not just our family but all the families who came to stay there. I still meet people today who will well up as they tell me their happy memories of staying in the Log House.
After the shock of the fire, I thought my father would want to build another Log House, but to my surprise he turned to me and said, with great generosity: ‘You do it, it is your generation now.’ I didn’t hesitate, although I had never done anything like this before, I could see this was an extraordinary gift. I hired some young architects in Edinburgh, Ben Ingle and Donnie Duncanson of Curve Architecture, because I liked how they listened and the fact they were willing to camp for a night on the site to watch how the light changes. I wanted to use modern building techniques that save energy, whilst still using as much local material as possible. We felled a 130-year-old Douglas fir for beams and European larch for the cladding and used Torridonian sandstone for the paving slabs. My friend Derek Kemp was the project manager, finding ways to source water and lay concrete floors. The real hero was my partner Luke who worked with RI Cruden to find the most efficient way to power an off-grid house on renewable energy. They all put up with my inability to make decisions, though to be fair with a house with such spectacular views it was hard to decide where to put the windows.
I won’t pretend it was easy. A global pandemic, the midges and a toddler wandering around a building site all presented challenges. But boy, was it worth it. I may not understand everything about architecture, but I understand how the entrance to a house can lift your spirits by giving you a glimpse of the loch, or how a stone bench can make you feel grounded. Wherever possible we tried to find ways to link the inhabitants inside with the nature outside. We chose black corrugated metal to reflect the sky, a pink concrete floor the same colour as local stone and found a way to frame a view of the mountains from every single room. Not everyone will like it. I have already encountered strong opinions about the bath in the bedroom, the rock in the living room and the lack of hunting trophies on the walls. But it is not the same house as the one that burned down and we are not the same people.
Fire has a part in nature because it causes change. In the Highlands of Scotland, forest fires were part of the ecosystem, burning off the understory and allowing new growth. In the same way, through life, we are exposed to moments of great change, through choice or circumstance. The fire was one of those moments for me, not just because of the physical changes it caused in my surroundings, but the long term psychological changes. In many ways I am still processing those changes. Alongside my father and siblings, I have taken on responsibility for an estate in the Highlands of Scotland, Ben Damph. Every month in Scottish Field I am writing a column about the challenges this presents. I encourage you to buy this excellent magazine. This monthly newsletter on substack is slightly different in that it will come out a couple of weeks later and allow more space for exploring how I feel as a writer. It is an effort to understand a place, the nature around me and myself, to forge new beginnings…
Next column will be out in December and it will be about Earth, and how the soil could regenerate at Ben Damph. See you then.
Love this Louise. I've stayed on the estate a few times with your Uncle Q and was saddened to hear of the fire, but delighted to hear of your phoenix revival - well done to everyone involved. You have a very special place there.