Tanera - the 'below radar' Scottish island living and growing by its own rules

Kayaks and the old Tanera post office. PIC: Contributed.

The largest of the Summer Isles was bought by millionaire Ian Wace in 2017 and is being transformed beyond compare.

Ask anyone on Tanera to define Tanera and they struggle to wrap words around a place that runs on its own rules and almost talks in its own tongue.

Bought in 2017 by financier Ian Wace for £1.7m, passed to a charitable trust and then developed under his watch, it is perhaps a place of sanctuary, sharing and imagination that sets its own norms with a purpose to help others.

Tanera is also a place that employs around 150 people, from chefs to gardeners, stable hands, builders, blacksmiths and builders who continue to develop the island and care for the invited guests of Mr Wace, one of the founders of Marshall Wace hedge fund, most of whom are sent by the chairities that he supports.

The old herring station, now conserved, and the chapel on the hill. PIC: Contributed.

Military veterans, NHS staff and teachers are among those who board the boat at Badentarbert Pier near Achiltibuie for the short, speedy crossing to the largest of the Summer Isles. The odd person milling about the village might be scooped up for lunch, which is served at large tables where strangers connect. No money changes hands here and there is nothing for sale.

Guests find respite, activities – such as potato planting and collecting kelp with ponies – and time to reset in this place of extreme natural beauty that is bound by views over the great mountains of Suilven, Canisp and Stac Pollaidh in one direction and the setting sun over the Minch in the other.

Such is its atmosphere, purpose and style, Tanera, Mr Wace says, is now almost its own verb.

“Tanera the verb is a work in progress but I do believe you can say ‘that is not very Tanera’ or ‘we Tanera’d it’ and it means something to those who have been to Tanera. It certainly means something to the team building it,” he adds.

Workers and guests gather for lunch on Tanera. PIC: Contributed.

How do you define it? “Well I have no idea. Not in words. It is in feeling. It is warming, homely, comforting. Calm, aspiring, risky but controlled, quality and care, and a place of wholeness,” he says.

Mr Wace, who is painting a watercolour as he speaks, adds: "When I first came here nobody believed you could do anything, nobody had any understanding of any part of anything and now there are hundreds of people who do - and this is before this place is on the map. Nobody knows about Tanera, it is completely below the radar. People who do know about it can’t believe we have built it and the care taken to build it.”

Around 40 buildings have been restored or rebuilt for accommodation and communal spaces on Tanera, which once boomed with the herring trade and where around 120 lived and worked in the late 19th Century. Buildings have also been added, such as the tiny wooden chapel high on the hill overlooking the quay, a giant World War Two aircraft hanger where people gather to eat and a dry cargo barge which is now a floating cinema. A sauna with a tidal plunge pool has also been created.

Restoration and the use of reclaimed materials not only counters throw away society but embeds soul into buildings as heritage, industry and past lives are honoured, says Mr Wace.

Ian Wace, who bought Tanera in 2017 and now oversees its development with the island now held in a charitable trust. PIC: Contributed.

Many materials for Tanera are bought from eBay and the former parapet of Westminster Bridge will be used in the redevelopment of the Summer Isles Hotel at Achiltibuie which was recently bought by the Tanera project within 12 hours of it going on the market as expansion of the vision is pursued.

Mr Wace bought Tanera after seeing it repeatedly advertised in Country Life magazine. It is, he believes, something he had to save.

He says: “I certainly had no interest in buying an island but I sort of felt sorry for it. If you sold this to the wrong person just because it was cheap, the wrong person would mess it up, and there was only one chance to get it right, that is the problem.

The main 'mess' where guests on Tanera gather. PIC: Contributed.

"In the wrong hands you could cause irreparable damage to this – something that is unbelievably fragile.”

Tanera coves around 300 hectares and was purchased from the Wilder Family of farmers and conservationists after the Coigach community on the mainland declined to pursue its purchase.

Mr Wace says says the financial value of Tanera now is “nowhere near” the investment made but he believes the true value lies elsewhere, and is far greater.

He says: “I believe Tanera will be a catalyst for people to reappraise what is possible if you get yourself into a different mindset, where you find that calmness, to find restoration in its real meaning of the word and restoration of the soul.”

As well as the redevelopment of the Summer Isles Hotel, two new inns are being built on the mainland opposite Tanera to draw NC500 tourists 356-days a year. The old farmhouse at the spectacular spot of Achnahaird Beach and the former manse at Achiltibuie are being converted.

The view to the west from Tanera in the Summer Isles. PIC: Contributed.

Today, the Tanera project sits at a crossroads as a way is sought to generate income from the the project without, crucially, spoiling the discretion and sanctuary afforded here. The businesses on the mainland will support Tanera to some degree.

Mr Wace met Mother Teresa in the early 1990s in an orphange in Kolkata with what was said between them now informing where Tanera is today. She asked him what he had done today – before pausing and adding ‘that mattered?”

"I will never forget it. It was the way that she paused to the point that I was about to answer. But she was always looking at me , she was holding my hand and it was very intense. Then these words….that mattered.

"Those are the important words. Tanera is built with those two words in mind.”