A New Zealand house that spins like a carousel has been put up for sale for the first time since its owners designed and built it 35 years ago.
Nicknamed “The Lighthouse”, the building sits on the Maraetai hillside off Auckland’s coast and is topped by a two-metre-wide cylindrical steel base and is believed to be the only building of its kind in the country. A complete revolution takes 33 minutes.
When its owner, engineer Don Dunick, was considering what kind of house he wanted to build on a coastal plot, his engineering colleagues came up with a novel idea—a rotating house with views of the ocean. Or views of native bush, depending on his mood.
“The good thing is you can change the view, you can change the sun, you can have the wind out or in…if there’s a storm coming at night [and] “If you didn’t want something like that on your bedroom window, you could turn it,” he told the Guardian on Tuesday.
“A few weeks ago I was sitting there and the sun came out and was shining on my TV, so I got up and turned the house over.”
Dunick and his colleagues spent five years designing a system that ensured all services, including water, electricity and sewerage, were self-contained and could rotate as the house moved – before the local council approved construction. Required.
The end result is “the simplest system you’ll ever see in your life,” Dunick said, adding that it can adapt to the raising and lowering of homes, protecting them from natural disasters like floods or wildfires.
Carolyn Hanson of Sotheby’s International Realty said the property, worth just over NZ$1 million, would be sold through a tender process. Hansen said the property has been packed with tourists since it was put up for sale last week. “There’s been a lot of local interest in us and now we’ve got international interest as well.”
Dunick, 80, plans to move back to New Zealand from his current home in Australia later this year and hopes to semi-retire in rural Northland. Selling a house he loved was bittersweet.
“I’m ecstatic about it, it’s a fantastic achievement … and it was ahead of its time,” he said.
“but [the new owners] Expect a better lifestyle…you can make the house what you want it to be and that’s awesome. “
