Retiring from a demanding career as a litigator in London threatened to leave a sizeable gap in Richard Stein’s calendar. But, rather than continuing to live the same life he had always enjoyed “on the same two pages of the A to Z” in Clerkenwell Stein, 71, decided the time was ripe for a new challenge. In 2015 he and his partner Sally Lovell, 63, who had worked for the BBC, borrowed a camper van and toured the west coast of Scotland. They did not find anywhere to settle on that trip, but the following year they happened upon Harbour Island, a short boat ride from the village of Crinan in Argyll.
The nine-acre island was uninhabited aside from a single 1950s-built and virtually untouched pebbledash bungalow with three bedrooms and an overgrown garden. Despite Lovell’s insistence that she did not want to live on an island, she was persuaded to have a look. After just five minutes walking around it, the couple decided it was perfect.
