Restoring Knockderry Castle from Utah: Overcoming Distance and Daily Challenges

Tackling Restoration Obstacles, One WhatsApp Message at a Time

Every morning in Utah, Chelom and I awake to a barrage of WhatsApp notifications, which is our primary method of communicating with the teams restoring Knockderry Castle 4,600 miles away. Each chat line is a reminder that restoring Knockderry Castle from thousands of miles away is as much a test of ingenuity as it is of teamwork. The castle, with its labyrinthine corridors, masterful work work, and historic quirks, throws new complications at us daily, and the distance only magnifies them.

Restoring a castle is a complex undertaking. But doing it largely from overseas adds even more complexity. Overnight, our group chat fills with urgent queries: a joiner in Scotland finds unexpected water damage beneath a century-old arch, dry rot behind a hand carved fireplace requires that we remove the fireplace to deal with the rot, and the photos land in our inbox before dawn. Sometimes, there are panicked voice notes about structural surprises, or requests for decision-making on materials that are rare and difficult to source.

Communication delays and time zone differences add another layer of complexity. A query sent from Scotland at 9:00 a.m. arrives in Utah at 2:00 a.m. Chelom and I have become used to middle of the night meetings and answering questions over our phones or laptops while’s we’re in bed. When urgent decisions are needed, WhatsApp group calls become our lifeline. We huddle virtually, debating how best to handle this problem or that. Jamie, Colin, Kirsty, and Charlie have done an incredible job documenting what we need to visit about with video and sending it over to us.

But photos and videos can only capture so much, and there’s always the nagging uncertainty of not being able to touch, see, or hear the problem firsthand. Because of that, we try to make it to the castle at least once a month. But often times it is more often that that. But they’re not sight-seeing trips. We’re often in and out of Scotland within twenty four to thirty six hours on our way back home to Utah. We love it when our schedules allow us to spend a week or more at the castle. And in the summer, when Chelom’s university classes are not in session, we have even more time there.

WhatsApp group messages have become our digital command center. We have well over fifty WhatsApp group chats, each one dealing with a different aspect of the castle. Some of them have three or four people in the group, others have ten or fifteen people in the group. From administrative issues like accounting and materials sourcing to restoration issues like the woodwork in the castle or the landscaping in the gardens—each issue has its own WhatsApp group. Each morning, the flood of messages marks not just another day of effort, but another example that the complexities of remote restoration can be lessoned with technology.