This is the story of co-creation of place and people, and expression of many experiments to implement the spiritual principles we aspire to. A house right in the centre of The Park, yet somehow a bit hidden, many don’t realise it is there. My precious home for over 33 years. It has seen so many changes, not only in physical appearance but also in its legal structure, that it can tell not only its own story but aspects of the development of The Park Ecovillage.

Caledonia began its life in 1981, called Saltoun. It was self-built by Jimmy S and friends. He had been the caretaker of the Wilkie Estate (to the North of The Park) until his retirement. The Wilkie family gifted him a piece of land to build himself a house. This he did, he planted 350 or so trees, and those in the front garden were all topiarised – pruned into shapes (spheres, cones, disks etc). He ran his chickens in the forest across the runway on estate ground and he tended his veggie patch – mainly potatoes, we think.

The house was clearly separate from anything else in The Park, and that was not only because of the topiarised trees and the big sign at the gate at the bottom of the 4m wide gravel drive showing a big Keep Out – Private. It was obviously built on a shoestring and ecological considerations were not high on the agenda.

In 1989 the house went up for sale. We understand that his wife had died, and Jimmy was no longer able to mow the grass around the many wee trees, and so he decided to move to Forres to be nearer his family. The Findhorn Foundation decided to put an offer in but was outbid by a man from Aviemore. However, in the end that sale fell through, and with an increased offer, the house finally came to the Foundation. As he had received some inheritance, Alan Watson provided the Foundation with a loan to buy Saltoun.

On 2nd October 1989, Alan Watson and I started our relationship. We were both living in Cluny – Alan for 11 years, and me since February 1988. One late afternoon in November, I went to pick Alan up from his work in the Trading Centre, to go back to Cluny, when the phone rang. It was Craig Gibsone who was Foundation Focaliser. He said: ‘Eileen doesn’t want to move into the white house on the hill. Do you want to live there?’ Alan turned to me and asked ‘Do you want to move in together?’ which prompted an emphatic ‘No!’ on my part. This softened to ‘Well, if our relationship survives our upcoming trip (2 months to Papua New Guinea), then I will consider it.’

It did, and upon our return we started to renovate the house. We stripped the house bare, removed all the nicotine stained vinyl wall papers and floor cover and redecorated it ourselves. We got Lyle Schnadt, from Weatherwise (later AES Solar), to put in his best yet central heating system with solar panels, and high levels of blown cellulose insulation in ceiling and floor (sadly we couldn’t do much about the walls). As an experiment we installed 8 sq.m of solar thermal panels in the hope that it would give us some space heating, at least in the shoulder seasons. However, this sadly didn’t happen. Whilst there was plenty of solar gain for hot water, there was never enough to heat the radiators as well.

At a time when the Community was building new eco-houses, we saw the opportunity to improve an un-ecological house by retrofitting it as much as possible. We felt the world needed both technology to build better houses for the future, and strategies to redeem poor housing stock. We wanted to experiment and demonstrate what’s possible.
This was the driving force for a series of changes to the house, a process that continues until today: the house and surrounding garden form an evolving being with its own co-creative drive.

We changed the name from Saltoun to Caledonia. We attuned to the name, i.e. it came to us in a meditation. It made a lot of sense as it was indeed on a wooded hill and of course we had a strong connection to Caledonia as Alan and I were passionate about regenerating the Caledonian forest through the work of Trees for Life.

In 1991 we added a large conservatory on the front to provide us with multiple benefits: passive solar gain, an entrance porch, an indoor growing space, a waiting room for my practice room. It was built by Philip Stewart with a helping hand from Roger Doudna. We also added our first triple glazed Nordan windows.

The biggest change in the garden was the removal of the 4m wide gravel drive, planting it with bushes and trees. With Marijke Wilhelmus, the Park Garden focaliser, we made a landscaping plan which included a quarry dust path up to the Universal Hall and the replacement of all the many conifers (which had previously been kept low through topiarising) with native deciduous trees. We planted a lot of rowan, birch and hazel saplings and started removing some of the conifers. That strategy sadly ran into trouble with subsequent garden focalisers refusing to take down trees. One of them said to me about the sequoia which was 30 years young at that stage, “I don’t want to take it out as that tree has presence.” I agreed with him and said, ”indeed, and it will have even more presence in 20 years’ time”. So, slowly our once 100% solar house and garden become increasingly overshaded. It took 30 years until finally some of the large trees, including the sequoia, got taken out for safety reasons. All I could do is apologise to the sequoia being, that human sentimentality had kept it in the wrong place for too long. However, at least the wood will now be used for the New Sanctuary, so something good will come of it.

In 1993 we replaced the garage with an extension for an ensuite bedroom. So far, we had been sleeping in the living room and then later in the small annex which Jimmy Stables had used as a workshop, as both Alan and I prioritised the need for an office over having a dedicated bedroom. The construction was undertaken by Sveinung Skatun and team. It followed the Simply Build Green guidelines which had been developed for the new eco-houses, It was also inspired by the beautiful woodwork in the Universal Hall recording studio and our desire to move away from square corners (even if we couldn’t build to the exacting standards of Steiner architecture). We decided to extend the wood cladding to the whole house to tie it all together. Finally Caledonia fitted in with the other houses on The Park and was no longer ‘the wee white house on top of the hill’.

We also created a laundry room which was accessible from the outside as we believed in sharing our washing machine which we did with several households for years. This reduced the need to purchase appliances, our small contribution to reduce consumerism.

In 1994 we removed a couple of internal walls and finally created the beautiful light-filled space so many feel nourished by when they come into Caledonia. This resulted in a quirky setup for the kitchen in two adjoining places, which works well for us, and a spacious open-plan shared living space in the centre of the house. Now the house was ready for us to expand into being a family.

In 1995 our son Kevin was born in our bedroom, in a birthing pool which had made the rounds in perfect timing as about 8 babies were born in the Community over a 4-month period. Perfect timing indeed, as the fact that the Foundation’s Internal Conference was taking place in the Universal Hall meant that the pool was quickly filled with warm water brought in buckets from many different places. Many hands indeed make light work. And he started as he meant to go on, as a true Community kid. Kevin had 7 people present when he popped out. They were singing, filming, providing food and warm water, company and midwifing … everything that was needed at this special time.

2003 saw a change in our relationship, as Alan and I decided to separate. This was reflected in the being of the house. It was difficult to decide how to divide up our life, and as with so many important decisions in our life together, we decided to hand this one over as we ‘heard the clear instruction’ not to burden our friendship by arguing over it. As we had done with many other decisions, big and small, we tossed a coin. We asked our trusted marriage counsellor to meditate with us and toss the coin for us. It came up for me to stay in Caledonia. Later Alan realised that he had always dreamt of building his own house which he indeed did. Within 2 years he had built and moved into Lighthaven on the Field of Dreams.

I decided to create a flat to rent out in the extension we had added in 1993 as I needed to generate income to help pay off the mortgage that enabled me to pay out Alan. We added a conservatory and opened a door into the laundry room, creating a galley kitchen there. The shared laundry moved into the little stone shed.

Over the next 7 years I had tenants in the flat. One of them created more space for themselves with a yurt in the garden, built up on a raised wooden platform. This arrangement changed in 2010 when Roy came to live with Kevin and me. As he wanted his kids to be able to visit, we decided to turn the flat into a holiday cottage which at times could be used for family visiting. With his skill and creativity, we turned it into a charming self-catering holiday flat which was well used over the next 8 seasons.

Roy built himself a workshop adjoining the laundry shed and later designed and built a studio on top of the round yurt platform. It really was only a garden shed, but one with a difference. His creativity created a space that was mainly built from recycled material dumped during the East Whins construction and windows and doors from the local recycling centre. There’s not a single rectangle in the whole building.

2011 brought another big change as the road to the new development in the Whins was built right outside our house. Rather than being aggravated by this loss of splendid isolation we decided to benefit from it and turn around the house. We created an entrance from the road and gained a room, as the previous entrance through the conservatory at the front was no longer needed. In 2014, Rolf Iversen remodelled the conservatory we had built in 1991. By reducing the glass expanse, insulating the floor and stud walls we gained a room warm enough to be able to be used all year round, even if it is not as highly insulated as the rest of the house.

2017 was the last guest season I did. By then Roy had moved out, and doing the holiday business by myself became just too hard. I was done with it. Two friends moved in with me and we shared the house and garden to the best of our abilities for almost 2 years. In 2019 my focus shifted as I started a relationship with Sylvia. Eventually my friends bought their own home on The Park.

After Sylvia and I got married in March 2020 we moved back into Caledonia. Despite the challenges of lock-down we had the pleasure of co-creating a new phase with Caledonia. We now looked to age-proofing the house by creating a fully accessible ‘wing’, as the rest of the house has steps up and down in different places, so that it could be a home for us to ‘live and die’ in. We both have experience with end-of-life care and know how appropriate infrastructure can be such a support in what might be a tricky time. With the help of our fantastic local builder, David Black and his team, Caledonia stepped into a new appearance. But there was more: Glenn Fairfoot built a stone wall to reduce the noise from the road and in the process created an enchanting garden, including a pond. And on the east side Rolf, helped by Udo Reiss, replaced the dilapidated sheds and lean-tos with a beautiful wood store, bicycle shed and outside workshop space. Tying it all together with the same larch cladding that graces our new extension completed the facelift. Roy’s studio also got spruced up and is now a beautiful space for me to do my work and arts & crafts – a play-space of great beauty and delight.

We now have a beautiful home which we cherish every day. With delight and deep gratitude, we live with the being of Caledonia – curious how it may want to express itself in the future.

Caledonia is more than a house for me. I feel that I live within the embrace of a being, a Place Angel, and am privileged to co-create for our mutual evolution. An experience in February 2016 showed me this strong connection in a visceral way. I was on a sabbatical in South Australia in a near perfect setting and completely open to finding where life wanted to take me. One morning I opened a message from a friend with a link to this rendition of the song ‘Caledonia’ by Dougie Maclean. I found myself streaming with tears of home sickness and joy – I knew I was going home.

And how about the ownership structure?
Caledonia has seen all the different iterations of legal structures over the decades. In 1990, Alan and I were Findhorn Foundation (FF) staff members and Alan was given Right of Occupancy (RoO) in exchange for the loan he had given the Foundation. Any improvements to the house we funded ourselves, and some of those costs were approved and added to the loan whilst other were not and we chose to do them anyway. Things changed in 1998 after a review of the Foundation by the Charities Commission. By that stage Alan and I were no longer Foundation staff, as we had been asked in 1993 to take our respective work departments into our own charities – Trees for Life and Holistic Health Care. This was the case with other members who had the same RoO arrangement with the FF. This was considered undesirable for the charity, and we were asked to buy our home from the FF. The FF found an archaic way to ensure ongoing cohesion within The Park, the Scottish feudal system. We had to pay the Foundation the market value of the house, and a small piece of land around it, and we were repaid our loan. We now owned Caledonia under a feu; our feudal superior was the Findhorn Foundation.

In 1999 the new Scottish Parliament was established and one of the first laws passed was one abolishing the feudal system, effective as of 2004. New legal structures were put in place to safeguard local cohesion, but rather than vertical ‘authoritarian’ power structures, a system of neighbourhood burdens was created where communities can determine which burdens they place on each other.

And so, on one momentous day in 2004, all titleholders on The Park had to agree to sign the new deeds and accept these neighbourhood burdens. This process didn’t go without a hitch here and there, but that is another story or many stories. Overall, this gave us what is now the Titleholders Association and a mechanism to look after The Park Ecovillage. This is a good thing, as it continues to be a private estate with a huge financial burden and responsibility placed on those carrying the liability for it. That it is only Titleholders who carry that obligation is of course less than ideal, but the Community continues to explore ways to make this more inclusive and fairer.