One has 4ft thick walls with nooks and crannies, the other has crisp lines; one has draughts, the other pre-installed central heating. One has stone floors worn down by centuries of use, the other a kitchen floor of Spanish terracotta.
If today’s architects and builders set out to replicate historic designs, does it mean you get the best of both worlds — period elegance and the benefits of modern comforts? Woodhouselee in Perthshire, which is 10 years old, bears a striking resemblance to my old home at Mayen in Aberdeenshire, built four centuries ago. But inside they are very different.
In the early 1990s, Neil and Carolyn McLauchlan decided to build a modern tower house. They borrowed from history to create an attractive building that would belong in the dramatic Perthshire setting, close to the popular House of Bruar shopping centre.
They had bought the land from the Blair Atholl Estates when they married 27 years ago, and at first they lived in a Finnish log cabin. When it became too small, they searched around for a bigger house. Their preference was for something old, but they were put off by the inconvenient layouts of the buildings and the decay in them.
They decided to build a replica 18th-century laird’s house attached to the cabin, which was then clad with breezeblocks and harling to look like a wing.
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Now, as the electronic gates of Woodhouselee swing silently open at the press of a button, you step into the past. There are crow steps on the gables and a witch’s turret on top of a round stair tower harking back to the 17th century. But a closer look reveals the more recent features.
In old houses, the weathering that has taken place over the centuries gives the crow steps a rounded feel, and everywhere the lines are soft and uneven. The stone-flagged floors and carved stone stairs are worn.
By contrast, the Woodhouselee wheel stair is made of sharply cut concrete and the kitchen floor is of Spanish terracotta. Here all the lines are crisp and straight, and there are no draughts under the doors. The materials are modern, and there are no small rooms with stone fireplaces to make the siting of a bed difficult. Nor are there little cupboards or secret rooms in the walls.
McLauchlan says he gets a rush of pleasure when he walks into the drawing room and the dining room, both of grand proportions. Sited one above the other, they are linked by the wheel stair which continues on up to the top of the house.
The walls are well insulated, the windows are double-glazed and the central heating was put in “with the bricks” rather than added later. There are no higgledy-piggledy nooks and crannies with bathrooms down steps or passages — the layout is family-friendly.
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The main stair is wide, with deep gently rising steps.
Instead of a vaulted lower ground floor, here there are two up-and-over heated garages. No stone outdoor privy lurks in the garden; instead there is a helicopter hangar and a tree house with electricity.
Since McLauchlan has recently retired and now works part-time from home, he has sold the helicopter and converted the hangar into a gym. But he has decided the time has come to and move on and leave the house he loves.
It is very different from the fortified hall house at Mayen in Aberdeenshire, where I used to live, and which is at least 400 years old.
It started as a simple one-up, one-down with an outside wooden stair leading to the first floor, and a tiny stone wheel stair connecting the upstairs hall with the ground floor. The kitchen would have been a separate building outside as was normal. The house was really solid, with 4ft thick walls, and you got the feeling of being hugged by it when you walked in.
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The property stood high above the River Deveron, and the winter gales howled down the glen. We were often snowed up there, but inside it felt safe.
The thick walls acted like night-storage heaters as long as they never were allowed to get cold. The first winter all the heat went into the walls, but by the second it was warm apart from the draughts.
None of the doors fitted as the walls were uneven and the stone floors worn by countless feet.
There were ghosts in what had been the old upstairs hall where the long-gone stair had gone up to the attic. In my time this had become two bedrooms and a bathroom with an oddly shaped passage, and anybody who slept there remarked on strange presences.
It is very difficult totally to fake age. Houses acquire a patina over the centuries that has as much to do with physical ageing as with the energy that builds up inside them, but the bonus of a new-build is that it won’t come with a resident ghost or three — and you can forget draughts and other inconveniences that real antiquity brings.
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Woodhouselee is for sale through Strutt & Parker, Edinburgh, 0131 226 2500, at o/o £1m