4-Bed B&B House with Agricultural Building Near Portree, Isle of Skye – Holiday Home



Hilltop House and Agricultural Building, 5b Conista, Highland, IV51 9UJ, United Kingdom, Portree (Great britain)
4 Bedrooms · 2 Bathrooms · 0m² Floor area
€514,800
House
No parking
4 Bedrooms
2 Bathrooms
0m²
Garden
No pool
Not furnished
Description
Step outside on a clear October morning and the whole of northern Skye is laid out in front of you. The Trotternish ridge catches the low light, the village of Conista sits quiet below, and somewhere down the hill a raven calls once and goes silent. This is what you look at from your kitchen window while the kettle boils. Not a screensaver. Not a postcard. Your actual life.
Hilltop House sits on a rise above the road at 5b Conista, roughly ten minutes from Portree by car — close enough to pick up fresh langoustines from the harbour at An Tairbeart, far enough that you won't hear anyone else's traffic. It's a four-bedroom whitewashed detached home with a B&B licence, a detached garage, a single-storey extension, and a separate 115-square-metre agricultural building on a concrete base. That's a lot of options on one title.
The house itself is in good condition and genuinely ready to use from day one. None of that "full of potential" code for "bring a builder." The ground floor flows from an entrance porch into a bright vestibule and then opens into a lounge and dining room anchored by a multi-fuel stove set into a feature fireplace. On a February evening, with sleet coming sideways off the Sound of Raasay, that stove is worth more than any number of underfloor heating specifications. Large picture windows frame the countryside rather than just hinting at it. Wooden floors throughout. The natural light in summer, when the sun barely sets before eleven, makes the whole space feel bigger than its footprint suggests.
The kitchen is open-plan with a breakfast bar, feature lighting, and enough worktop space to actually cook in — not just heat things up. There's an electric oven, hob, cooker hood, fridge-freezer, and dishwasher. A utility room off the back gives you a washing machine and external access, which matters when you've been out walking the Quiraing and need somewhere to deal with muddy boots before coming inside. Ground floor also has a cloakroom WC.
Upstairs, four bedrooms sit under dormer windows that frame views across the grazing land and surrounding hills. The king-size master has fitted wardrobes and its own en-suite shower room — a detail that makes the B&B operation work without guests and owners sharing a bathroom. The second king can be dressed as a twin depending on the booking. Two singles complete the lineup, each with good storage. The family bathroom has a full-size bath and a separate shower enclosure, so the morning routine doesn't become a bottleneck.
The B&B licence currently covers five guests, and the business has traded on Booking.com, Airbnb, Sykes Holiday Cottages, and TripAdvisor — holding an 8.4 rating on Booking.com, which on Skye, where expectations are high and reviewers are opinionated, is a genuine achievement. Currently, only two bedrooms are let to guests, with a third kept for owner use. There's obvious room to push occupancy higher. Open all four rooms, run year-round rather than seasonally, and the income picture changes considerably — still operating below the VAT threshold at current levels, which keeps the accounting simple for smaller operators.
The detached garage has power, light, and houses the oil boiler. It has a pitched roof and a roller door, and depending on what statutory consents you're prepared to pursue, it has development potential that the current owners haven't touched. An annexe, a studio, extra guest accommodation — Skye planning is not always the fastest process, but the structure is there. The agricultural building is the genuinely unusual part of this package. At 115 square metres on a solid concrete base, with corrugated sheet walls, a wooden frame, mains power, full-height sliding double doors, and transparent roof panels that let in real usable light, it functions year-round as a workshop, storage facility, or base for any number of land-connected ventures. Photography studios, kayak storage for guided tours, a micro-business of almost any kind — the building is wind and water-tight and in active use now.
Services include mains electricity, mains water, mains drainage, oil-fired central heating with a hot water tank, double glazing throughout, and Wi-Fi across the property.
Now, about Skye itself — because the location is doing serious work here. Portree is ten minutes away, and it punches well above its size. The harbour has good restaurants: Scorrybreac on Bosville Terrace has a quiet reputation among people who know what they're talking about, and the Sea Breezes on Marine Terrace does shellfish properly. The town has a Co-op, a post office, independent shops, Portree High School, and a community that is genuinely multi-generational rather than a purely seasonal operation. Kilmuir Primary School serves the northern peninsula.
The geology around Conista is the kind of thing people fly from Tokyo and Los Angeles to look at. The Old Man of Storr is a 45-minute walk from the Storr car park — a column of basalt standing 55 metres tall on a ridge above Loch Leathan, and on a clear day the view from the top takes in Torridon and the Outer Hebrides. The Quiraing, a few miles further north, is a landslip on a geological scale — pinnacles, cliffs, and a hidden plateau called The Table that most visitors never reach. The Kilt Rock waterfall drops 55 metres into the sea at Mealt, and the walk to it takes about four minutes from the car park, which means even guests who aren't serious walkers will see something they talk about for years.
Wildlife here is not a marketing phrase. White-tailed eagles — the largest bird of prey in the UK — nest on Skye and are routinely spotted over the Trotternish peninsula. Red deer are on the hills in numbers. Otters work the sea lochs below Conista on calm mornings. For anyone operating outdoor tourism or photography guiding from this property, the raw material is exceptional.
The A87 runs south from Portree to the Skye Bridge at Kyle of Lochalsh, which connects the island to the mainland without a ferry. Inverness Airport is about two hours by road — direct flights from London Gatwick, Edinburgh, Manchester, and Amsterdam. In peak summer, Skye receives well over half a million visitors. The accommodation infrastructure on the island has not kept pace with demand, which means a well-run B&B in a scenic location with good reviews and existing platform presence is not a speculative bet. It's a known commodity.
For international buyers thinking about second homes in Scotland, this property sits in a category that doesn't require imagination. The income stream exists. The guest reviews exist. The views exist. Scotland's land reform and planning environment has its complexities — a Scottish solicitor specialising in rural property is essential — but the ownership structure here is straightforward, and the business is already trading. Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT) applies rather than England's Stamp Duty, and rates for second homes in Scotland include an Additional Dwelling Supplement, so factor that into your acquisition cost calculation.
Key features at a glance:
- Four-bedroom detached house in good condition at Conista, 10 minutes from Portree
- Active B&B licence, rated 8.4 on Booking.com, listed on Airbnb and Sykes
- King-size master bedroom with en-suite shower room
- Second king-size room configurable as twin, plus two single bedrooms
- Multi-fuel stove in the lounge, large picture windows with open countryside views
- Modern open-plan kitchen with breakfast bar, full appliance suite, and utility room
- 115m² agricultural building with mains power, concrete base, and full-height sliding doors
- Detached garage with development potential (subject to statutory consent)
- Oil-fired central heating, mains water/electricity/drainage, double glazing, Wi-Fi throughout
- Approximately 0.10 hectares of land with rough grazing, traditional stone dyke wall, and ample off-road parking
- 10 minutes from Portree harbour, restaurants, schools, and shops
- Close proximity to the Storr, Quiraing, Kilt Rock, and major Trotternish walking routes
- Priced at £514,800 as a going-concern business with room to grow revenue
- Suitable as a lifestyle investment, family holiday base, or full owner-operated hospitality business
If you want to own a vacation home in Scotland that earns its keep while you're not there, and wakes you up to that view when you are, this one is worth a serious look. Get in touch with the team at Homestra today to arrange a viewing or request the full property pack — the calendar fills up faster than you'd expect.
Details
- Amount of bedrooms
- 4
- Size
- 0m²
- Price per m²
- €∞
- Garden size
- 1000m²
- Has Garden
- Yes
- Has Parking
- No
- Has Basement
- No
- Condition
- good
- Amount of Bathrooms
- 2
- Has swimming pool
- No
- Property type
- House
- Energy label
Unknown
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