Rosehall House: Secret Home of Coco Chanel and Hugh Bendor Grosvenor
The home, which was once Ms Chanel's secret hideaway, is still full of luxury finds formerly owned by the fashion designer.
The French fashion designer has recently been evoked by some youtubers who, fascinated by her myth, have posted footage shot in an abandoned house whose images arouse a mixture of both excitement and thrill. This is Rosehall House, a mansion in the Scottish moorlands, located in a desolate area near the town of Lairg in whose interior one can still find - incredibly - unattended objects and furnishings that were coveted, bought, brought there, touched and used by Coco Chanel herself, who lived in Rosehall House for several years.
Urban explorer Matt from Youtube channel Finders Beepers took a look around the abandoned property in 2020, stating that the home “smells just like Chanel No. 5”.
Welcome to Rosehall House
In the middle of nowhere. To get to the first main town Inverness, it takes at leat two hours. A talented French fashion designer certainly does not retire to a remote heath in Scotland without a motive that might even become the stuff of fiction. Rosehall House was in fact owned by the Duke of Westminster Hugh Grosvenor, whose mistress Madame Chanel was.
The relationship
The Duke of Westminster and Coco Chanel had met in 1925 in Monte Carlo, the designer was not yet as famous as she would later become but the Duke, who was one of the richest people in Britain, fell in love with her and they began an affair even though he was married to a second wife. Coco was not the duke's only mistress, but for her, who was certainly not in love with him, this was no problem, because Grosvenor could be very generous with all his women. In fact, he soon gave the designer a gift of the house in Scotland and Chanel certainly did not reject it, even though she found its interior hideous.
And this is what makes this house even more incredible: Coco Chanel designed some of the interior herself, replacing wallpapers in her signature chic style. Gabrielle quickly redecorated everything to her taste, reclaiming the furnishings from the grim tendency of the old Highland mansions, filled every room with shades of beige in imitation of her showroom on Rue Cambon Chanel in Paris, and had all the old fireplaces replaced with more vibrant designs. There's also a rumour that the house contains Scotland's first bidet.
How it ended, however, between Coco Chanel and Hugh Grosvenor is common knowledge. The liaison lasted more than ten years and went through the duke's third marriage undisturbed. But it was interrupted when, tired of his third wife too, Grosvenor had the bad idea of asking Coco Chanel to be his fourth. The fashion designer ended the relationship immediately, abruptly. And to those who asked her why her resounding refusal to marry such a desirable party, she only replied: 'There are many duchesses, but there is only one Coco Chanel'.
Today
According to The MailOnline, Rosehall Estate, with 22 rooms and 700 hectares of land, was sold to a foreign family for an undisclosed sum earlier this year, after being on the market for almost five years. Its sale was handled by the RE/MAX agency, which offered it for £3 million with the intention of transforming it into a luxury boutique hotel. However, the sale fell through, giving Nadin the opportunity to take a look inside during a holiday with his family.
Today the property is in a state of ruin, with the paint peeling and the floor almost destroyed. However, remnants of its former splendour remain.
