Is a mountain male or female? One minute this one lies in soft slumber. A pea green blanket thrown over a reclining Dora Carrington voluptia. At this point, the winter sun splashing light onto the graceful valleys and indents Glendevon is definitely a girl. More a woman.
Then, in an instant, the sky darkens to a damp lambswool. A heavy beard of mist grows on its crag. What was gentle now looks imposing and glowering. Looking now like the subject of a Werner Herzog epic. Glendevon is a man. A heroic and intimidating one. One you would think carefully before tackling.
It will transfigure regularly and constantly. Always a shift. Ever changing, never changes. You get a perfect view of its show if you take afternoon tea in the ocean liner scaled room that respectfully borrows its name.
Exactly as it should be, the room is exquisitely arranged. If the Werner Herzog reference worked for Glendevon the mountain then it seems only fair to suggest that Glendevon the room feels like a moment from a Sofia Coppola or a Luca Guadagnino film.
However beautiful the room is, it has the polite grace to make the mountain outside the centre of attention.
As the ancient rise of rock and earth changes through the day so, too, does the room. From delicate lull to a refined effervescence of high tea as high tea really should be.
We come to places like this to remember, and to reset to, a different way. To appreciate and take part in the ceremony of a fragrant privilege.
The international language of luxury is understood even when it is infected with a local accent.
This room could belong in many places. There is the gauzy light of Lake Como. A delicate suspense and pale delight. There is the soft chalk air of spring in Venice. There is the unmistakable erudite sophistication of the Scotland that seduced Voltaire.
There is the whisper that says you could not wish for a more beautiful place to enjoy the rarefied ceremony of afternoon tea.
A room needs to be very special to be named after a beautiful, eternal mountain that casts a shadow before it.
Nomenclature, like every element in the composition, is perfectly judged.