Thanks again to Frater FS, here’s another newspaper article from the archives.
In this one, The Scotsman in 1991 reports on the then-recent troubled history of Jimmy Page’s attempt to sell Boleskine House…
Disappearing trick halts sale of retreat
The Scotsman 08 Apr 1991
Disappearing trick halts sale of retreat
THE rock guitarist Jimmy Page is looking for a buyer for his Highland retreat because a proposed £260,000 deal with a mysterious American has fallen through. Police want to question the American, Michael Corsan, who is alleged to have left behind a string of unpaid bills in the Highlands. Yesterday Strutt Parker, the Edinburgh estate agent for the former Led Zeppelin musician, acknowledged that the deal had fallen through and the property, Boleskine House, once owned by the self-styled wickedest man in the world, Aleister Crowley, would go back on the market in the summer. Mr Corsan claimed he was a film producer wanting to make a film on the life of Crowley.
He said Ken Russell, the controversial British director, would direct and after it was completed Mr Corsan would live on the property, on the shores of Loch Ness. But he disappeared at the New Year and police are investigating alleged hotel and car-hire frauds in the Highlands. However, their inquiries have drawn a blank. A spokesman said the agents would be having talks with Mr Page and expected the property to go back on the market.
The spokesman added that he was confident a buyer would be found, as there had been more than 350 inquiries when it went on sale last year. Apparently the estate agent was convinced that Mr Corsan was sincere in his bid because he did everything it expected from a genuinely interested party, even going to the lengths of involving local solicitors and surveyors. But he failed to provide the necessary financial references and since he has not been in touch with the agents for several weeks, they decided it was pointless waiting longer. Mr Page put the seven-bedroom house on the market last year at £220,000 after buying it for about £100,000 in 1971. A police spokesman at Northern Constabulary headquarters in Inverness confirmed: ”We are investigating a man called Michael Corsan.” The house’s connections with black magic and witchcraft have brought visitors with a macabre interest in it from all over the world. Crowley bought Boleskine House in 1899 to carry out the Abra Melin, an allegedly highly dangerous magic ceremony.
Preparations took six months but were never completed and it is claimed this is the reason the house is ”disturbed”. Crowley lived in it for the first two decades of this century before, it is claimed, he tried to raise an Elemental, a devil, in a sinister rite in London. His companion was found dead of fright and Crowley was lying in the corner, his clothes in shreds and gibbering in fear. He died in 1947.