On the banks of Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands stands a home once owned by the controversial occultist and self-proclaimed prophet Aleister Crowley.
It has since been owned by Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page and is now due to be reopened to the public after major renovations were carried out.
The original Boleskine House was built around 1760 by a member of the Fraser clan as a hunting retreat.
According to legend, a church stood on the site, however, a fire ripped through the building as a congregation gathered, killing everyone inside.
The home is situated near the former Boleskine Graveyard, where it is said the dead were once brought back to life.
Its reputation and attraction to those interested in its dark past have not always been welcome by locals.
The building has since been rescued by a charity which hopes to preserve the past but also build a brighter future.
But how did it come to be so infamous?
The home of a ‘dark occultist’
STV NewsAleister Crowley was a mountaineer and poet who was notorious for his involvement in the occult.
He was a controversial figure in his own time, attracting accusations of “black magic”. In the 1960s, he was adopted as an emblem of the sex and drugs culture, featuring on the artwork of the Beatles’ iconic Sgt Pepper’s album.
But decades earlier, in 1899, Crowley purchased Boleskine House in an effort to seclude himself as he perfected an occult ritual.
The six-month operation, laid out in his self-published biography, was said to have required the summoning of the 12 Kings and Dukes of Hell.
But things did not go according to plan, he was called away and he feared that what he had begun left behind demons that terrified locals.
The magician eventually moved to a modest cottage in Dennyloanhead near Falkirk in 1913.
Despite Crowley’s departure, locals still believed the home was marred with bad spirits. One owner, Major Edward Grant, took his life in Crowley’s former bedroom with a shotgun in 1960.
‘The Great Sausage Scandal’
The mansion’s history doesn’t solely revolve around the paranormal and the dark arts. The location also played a role in a criminal plot.
Dennis and Mary Lorraine purchased the property in 1963 with the intent to use the land as a pig-rearing operation.
However, it was a front for the ongoing Cadco scandal, also known as The Great Sausage Scandal, further south in Glenrothes.
Dennis had diverted millions of pounds from investors and state funds into his failing sausage factory business in Brighton, which he promised would be used in large-scale development projects.
As the scandal was exposed, the couple fled across the pond.
Rockstar owner and life as a hotel
Jimmy Page later bought the home with the hopes of returning the house to a “Crowley-like theme“.
Then it passed into the hands of Ronald and Annette MacGillivray in 1992, and they transformed it into a hotel.
Uncomfortable with the house’s darker reputation, the couple avoided references to its myth-laden past and said nothing out of the ordinary occurred while they lived there.
Upon Ronald’s death, Annette sold Boleskine in 2002.
From ashes to rebirth
Boleskine House made headlines once again in 2015 after a blaze tore through the infamous home, severely damaging the building and almost completely destroying the interior.
The Boleskine House Foundation SCIO purchased the estate in 2019 with the aim of returning the home and the gardens to their original form.
Later that year, two houses on the estate were deliberately set alight, causing further fire damage.
After more than five years of renovation work, the building is set to open to the public in April 2026 welcoming all, whether they are drawn by its “storied past” or the charity’s creative vision.
Follow STV News on WhatsApp
Scan the QR code on your mobile device for all the latest news from around the country
