A property branded the "most complicated house ever built" which is owned by a pioneering inventor has gone on sale - for £30million.
Dr John Taylor touched on millions of lives by changing the way Brits make a cup of tea, when, in the 1970s, he invented the switch that turns off electric kettles when the water’s boiling.
Now his massive mansion is up for sale with the world-renowned yachtsman, pilot, philanthropist and horologist in his mid-eighties, and only him and his miniature schnauzer living there.
Dr Taylor is a huge fan of puzzles, something he reflects in his sprawling home on the Isle of Man.
It’s the most expensive house on the market on the island, and parts were built with such advanced engineering it had to be stress-tested by a computer.
The Cambridge graduate described it as “the most complicated house ever built” and it comes with an elliptical design and a stone staircase fixed only at one end.
It’s known as the Arragon Mooar Estate, named after the 5,000-year-old Neolithic quartz circle that sits on the house.
It took Dr Taylor seven years to build it and is not just a home but a museum to historic timepieces too.
Any potential buyers with enough money could bag the 23,000sq ft property that sits on a massive 282-acre estate overlooking the sea, just 15 minutes from the island’s capital Douglas.
Inside the estate, the mansion is made up of a number of oval rooms that are set around an oval dome-roofed atrium.
The floor is precision-engineered into the shape of a dahlia and secret passageways are included in the layout as the chandeliers were so intricately designed that they needed a new type of wiring just for them.
Dr Taylor aimed to build it all with a £5million budget but admitted he went several times over that.
With more than 400 patents to his name, The Metro reported he said: “Modern architects build things in straight lines, but the most difficult shape of all is an elliptical house. I never like to do what other people have done before. It’s the process of creating that I enjoy.”
The design is said to be inspired by ancient classical structures he saw on holiday whilst sailing around the Greek islands with his children.
He also later fell in love with the work of 16th century architect Palladio and the Georgian country houses of Robert Adam.
Dr Taylor went on to add: “I started off wanting to create a house that was faithful to these traditions, but executed in an entirely new and interesting, even modern, way.”
At first he thought about building a home that could rotate on a circular railway track but realised this would pose a number of problems as well as being “a bit naff”.
The estate was eventually completed in 2014, with the help of Julian BIcknell & Associates architects.
He built the property with an orangery, in honour of his grandfather who was head gardener at a grand estate in Wales.
There were three high spec cottages on site and every aspect of the interiors is bespoke.
On the first floor, the gallery houses display cases of mineral and fossil collections, with carpets made from hypoallergenic bamboo.
Dr Taylor opens his house up to schoolchildren to tour it, including his three metre Dragon Chronophage - a sister clock to one he designed for Corpus Christi College, at Cambridge University - that shows a dragon swallowing a pearl for every minute.
Only the pensioner and his miniature schnauzer live in the house first time but Dr Taylor isn’t done yet, and has taken on another property on a new home he intends to make self-sustaining with “green energy”.
