Man of mystery behind resort even Tiger couldn't afford

Dressed like a typical Highland laird in tweed trousers and waistcoat and black cashmere polo neck, he sits in the wood-panelled splendour of the drawing room at his baronial home overlooking Loch Rannoch and speaks of his mission to transform the lives of the wealthiest men and women on the planet.

He paints a picture of a Highland utopia where only the "multi-multi-billionaires" of the world will have the right to relax and make the genuine friendships they crave in one another's exalted company.

He reels off figures that would test even Bill Gates – membership fees "way over" 2 million a year and plans to build luxury houses with starting prices of a staggering 100m across his estate.

And he even boasts that, while Tiger Woods will be welcome to play at the championship courses he plans as part of the development, the world's wealthiest sporting superstar won't be rich enough to secure membership at his exclusive club.

But, in an interview with The Scotsman lasting almost two hours, Mr James, the laird of the Dall Estate, is at pains to talk about anything other than himself.

His past remains shrouded in mystery. All that is known about him is that he is a Jehovah's Witness, a native of Cornwall, a self-made man and a father of seven, who amasses his fortune from property speculation in Britain and abroad.

Mr James, 44, refuses to be photographed. He says: "I won't be photographed – myself and my family – because we do like to not be known really.

"There are some people like Donald Trump who like to be in the focus of the media and that's fair enough. But I am a family man and I just want privacy and to enjoy my family as an unknown person."

Asked about his background and how he made his fortune, he will only divulge: "I am just really a speculator and an entrepreneur. I am very quiet about what I do. But I have had a love of property ever since I was young child."

Speaking in a broad Cornish accent – he and his family only moved to Scotland after he bought the Dall Estate in 2003 – he is more than happy to talk about his plans to create a multi-billion-pound private playground for the super-rich on his land.

He states emphatically: "We want to make it a virtual paradise up here. I have no concerns about money – none whatsoever. I have spent millions to date on this and I am not throwing that out of the window. I know this concept will work beyond my expectations."

With a membership rule that only billionaires with at least 100m in liquid assets – ready cash – need bother applying, only the ultra-rich and their guests will be able to enter the Dall Estate. Gold-diggers and conmen won't get past the gates.

Mr James says: "Billionaires can go to any hotel and they are the target of the beautiful, greedy people in the world who try and move in their circles and then, 12 months or so down the line, they take them to cleaners.

"What they are getting here is something they can't get anywhere else and that's genuine friendships. They are coming here because they can make friends with people who aren't after their goodies.

"They want somebody that loves them from their heart. They want somebody to have real cuddle from, not a fake cuddle. And that's something that money can't buy."

Warming to his theme, he claims that while Beyonce Knowles and Christina Aguilera might jet in to perform, no pop or Hollywood stars have enough spare cash to make it as members.

He continues: "Tiger Woods isn't rich enough to join, but he can come as a guest because he is known. He will come as an unpaid guest and he will come and play some golf and he can enjoy golf on a completely different course to any golf course he has played on before."

Those who do make it as members, he insists, will get a lot a bang for their bucks. Secluded on an estate with "Fort Knox" style security, the wealthiest people on the planet will have access to a luxury hotel where the top staff will be paid 250,000 a year to see to their every need, a choice of the finest restaurants, two 18-hole championship golf courses, a state-of-the-art health spa, a concert hall, a luxury shopping arcade selling "priceless" goods and even a body-enhancement surgery.

He also reveals that the private homes being planned for the estate will be

"upwards of 100m". He adds: "Ninety per cent of them are going to be designed by star architects like Sir Norman Foster – a whole list of the world's very best iconic star architects. They will be signed up on the granting of outline planning consent. These properties will be the very latest in state-of-the-art buildings and heritage sites of the future. They will be no-expense-spared properties."

Asked where the money is coming from, Mr James replies: "It's coming from me and a private investor – one private investor."

But he admits: "I haven't got it (the money] guaranteed in place yet. Once we've got the planning consent through, then that's when the details start running."

And he insists that launching such an ambitious scheme while the world is still in the grip of a major recession will be no barrier to success.

"The recession is a bad recession," he says. "But it doesn't mean to say the money has disappeared in the world. It is all here. It's just gone into a lot fewer pockets."

Mr James is also quick to reject claims that his scheme is simply delusional or a pipe dream. He replies: "They are saying that. But, there again, right through history people have said that things are pipe dreams. But see what the world has done through history.

"A wise person will listen to the whole facts before they make a judgment. It is so easy for anybody to jump to conclusions."