It was once a secret love nest for Coco Chanel and one of the world’s richest men.
Now the derelict Rosehall Estate mansion, close to Inverness, has been sold after four years on the market and will become a luxury hotel.
It was originally put up for offer at an asking price of £2.5 million in 2015.
An undisclosed offer on the mansion, made by a foreign buyer, has now been accepted.
Malik Afsar of Remax Central estate agents said the purchaser bought Rosehall after securing permission to convert it into a hotel.
Now crumbling, the B-listed home had its interiors redesigned by Chanel in the roaring ’20s when she enjoyed a relationship with Hugh “Bendor” Grosvenor, the second Duke of Westminster.
Scraps of the French designer’s handblocked wallpaper can still be seen in the 22 rooms.
The duke was one of the world’s richest men when he owned Rosehall. It had been built in 1873 after the original building was destroyed by fire.
Coco Chanel was his lover between 1923 and 1929. She spent summers at the property during that time, when she decorated each room in floral and pinstriped wall coverings that were inspired by her flat in Paris.
With its glamorous owners, Rosehall was visited by many high-profile names. Winston Churchill stayed there in 1928 while recovering from illness.
Writing to his wife, Clementine, Churchill had much praise for the French fashion designer.
He wrote: “Coco fishes from morn till night, and in two months has killed 50 salmon.
“She is very agreeable — really a great and strong being fit to rule a man or an Empire.”
The Georgian mansion lies at the heart of a 700-acre estate. The building requires millions of pounds of renovation work.
