Samantha Kane last visited what are said to be the ruins of the hanging gardens of Babylon 50 years ago as a young boy in Iraq.
Now as the self-styled Lady Carbisdale, a successful barrister and millionaire owner of one of Scotland’s grandest baronial mansions, she hopes to build a homage to this wonder of the ancient world after purchasing land around her 20-bedroom clifftop home.
But her plans for the formerly public land have ruffled feathers in the remote community, an hour’s drive from Inverness.
Last week, Kane, 64, who transitioned to a female in the Nineties, bought three hectares of land around Carbisdale Castle for an undisclosed fee, despite the months-long opposition of some residents.
Four of the five members of the local Ardgay & District community council ― Silvia Muras, the chairwoman, Sabrina Ross, Buster Crabb, and the secretary Anna MacInnes ― all resigned before a meeting last week, leaving only Kane herself.
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Muras told The Press & Journal “everyone has a different reason” for resigning. The others did not respond to requests for comment.
The community council ceased to be viable without the minimum four members and was put into abeyance until after the general election later this year.
The resignations followed an explosive “extraordinary general meeting” in November to discuss the sale of the public land, previously managed by Forestry and Land Scotland. At the time transphobia and racism complaints were raised and police were called.
But now the sale has gone through, Iraqi-born Kane can advance with her plans for the vast castle first built for the Duchess of Sutherland over a century ago.
The property tycoon, who is thought to be the only Briton to undergo gender reassignment surgery three times in a lifetime, spoke of her desire to be the “princess in my own fairy tale” after buying the castle two years ago.
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Yet, in order to make the property, with outgoings of close to a £1 million each year on upkeep, viable, she dreams of turning it into a £5,000 per annum members’ club targeted at high-net-worth individuals from around the world.
She argued that without the land around the castle she would not be able to conduct the necessary repairs or developments required ― nor to build her “legacy” hanging gardens.
“Although I haven’t been to Babylon for over 50 years, [the planned gardens] reminds me of my own heritage and the hanging gardens of Babylon. But what I will call it is Lady Samantha’s hanging gardens of Carbisdale,” she said.
The building, finished in 1917, was one of the last great castles built in Scotland, and was a refuge for the King of Norway during the Second World War.
A state-of-the-art spa and swimming pool are also planned for the “Duchess Club”, which was promoted at an elaborate Burns dinner last month. Residents raised concerns over the membership fee, but Kane said: “These days it costs the same to join a decent gym.”
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She originally planned to purchase up to 16 hectares but scaled back the request after opposition from the local community. Kane claimed her proposals would bring up to 90 jobs to the area and said: “I couldn’t really understand anybody who could possibly be against what’s being done here at Carbisdale.”
If the resignations from the council were related to her ambitions for the castle, she added, “it’s like the Parisians resigning over somebody trying to restore the Eiffel Tower”.
A Forestry and Land Scotland spokesman said: “After due consideration of the request to purchase a small parcel of land at Carbisdale Castle, we have agreed to transfer ownership of 3ha of land.
“The sale will facilitate structural repairs to the castle which will conserve and restore the grade B listed building and allow the development of the castle into a hotel, delivering employment opportunities and economic benefit to the local community.
“In reaching our decision we took into account the high level of public support for the owner’s long-term plans for the castle.”
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Kane has had a colourful past, with multiple reinventions, after arriving in London about 40 years ago from Iraq as a student called Sam Hashimi.
In 1989 as a businessman, Hashimi first drew public attention when launching an unsuccessful takeover bid for Sheffield United FC.
In 1997 the then divorced father-of-two shocked family and colleagues by revealing she would undergo private gender reassignment surgery to become a woman.
She spent £100,000 on cosmetic surgery to become a woman, the glamorous interior designer Samantha Kane, and briefly became engaged to a wealthy landowner. But in 2004, after much soul searching and disappointment at the way she was treated as a woman, she paid £25,000 to transition back into a man.
Over a decade later she was living as a woman again, and working as a barrister, when she was revealed as the mystery buyer of the castle.
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Kane says that while she “did experience some transphobia, some racism” since taking over the once dilapidated estate ― last month she claimed a gate was intentionally vandalised ― the vast majority of residents have been supportive.
In her opinion, the fierce opposition she has seen from a small minority is caused by fear of change ― something she is no stranger of in her personal life.
“They see me as a stranger, as somebody who wanted to make a change in what they are used to,” she said.
“But sometimes change is good … including in my own life, [my] gender change ― it is not always a bad thing to actually change things to make people happy.”
