If you fancy going for a spin while sitting in the lounge, real estate agent Carolyn Hanson reckons she has the perfect house.
An unusual rotating house – yes, the house travels from bush to sea view without you taking a step – is for sale in Maraetai, Auckland, near the beach.
“It rotates at the linear speed of the outside perimeter of 1.22m a minute, so that’s travelling at the middle speed range,” said Hanson, who added the house is also fully relocatable.
At the middle speed, it takes about 33 minutes to do a full spin. “It can go faster and it can go slower but this is the recommend speed of the owner,” the New Zealand Sotheby’s International Realty agent said.
Start your property search
Read more:
- Kiwi pop legend Tina Cross selling her waterfront Auckland home
- Iconic East Auckland castle needs a new king
- 'Lovely' locals buy one of Waiheke's last original beachfront baches for $6.2m
The owner is Don Dunick, who now lives in Australia but told the New Zealand Herald in 2002 that the house at 179 Maraetai Drive turns so the penthouse bar can look out either to the sea or bush so the barbecue is out of the wind.
“Weather sensors automatically rotate the house to make the most of the sun’s warmth or a cool breeze to keep a constant indoor temperature.”
Dunick, a crane maintenance engineer, dubbed the three-bedroom house “The Lighthouse,” but one that effortlessly and quietly rotated through 360 degrees on a crane bearing mounted on a pedestal.
The Herald reported it took nearly 18 years of Dunick’s spare time for the germ of the idea for his spinning house to reach completion, with the toughest problem being how to put in the service pipes and wires without them being tied in knots. After five years chewing over the problem, he figured it out, telling the Herald the solution could also be a boon for rotary cowsheds.
The unusual house is dubbed "The Lighthouse" and can effortlessly spin 360 degrees. Photo / Supplied
There were even sensors which detected an approaching storm that turned the part of the house with open doors towards shelter.
“The other night I saw a storm coming up the valley and I turned the bedrooms away from it so as not to be disturbed by the noise.” He also told the Herald the house was burglar-proof because its powered sliding doors could not be forced open and open doors could be programmed to close when anyone approached, and the glass walls were kept free of dust by water jets programmed for washes.
Hanson’s marketing describes Dunick as a visionary and the house as an “architectural marvel”.
“From overcoming technical challenges to patenting ground-breaking solutions, every detail reflects Mr Dunick’s unwavering commitment to innovation.”
Hanson told OneRoof the house was very unusual and while there were a few other rotating houses in the world (such as this one in Australia), she thinks it is potentially a world first because it spins a full 360 degrees compared to some others which she thinks go only 180 then turn back.
The mechanism is easy to operate: “You push a switch and we’re off.”
It took the home's owner 18 years to solve the problem of how to spin a home without breaking all the pipes and wires. Photo / Supplied
At the busy first open home at the weekend, people said it was like being on a cruise ship.
“A lot of the locals came through who had always just admired it from the outside, had never been in, and they were surprised that it does continuously spin and it does exactly what it says it does.”
Anyone who has dined at the Orbit at the top of Auckland’s Sky Tower will have an idea of the sensation, but Hanson said the Orbit was a lot slower than the Maraetai house, and she said the spin can be switched off if you want to stay in one spot.
People at the open home were totally in awe, she said.
“You’re looking at the sea one minute and then a few minutes later you’re back into the bush. It’s a new experience.
“You can just turn it on if you’re sitting there having a glass of wine on the top deck at sunset and you want to spin around or remove yourself from the sun or the wind or whatever it is or just enjoy being in that rotation.”
The pace is not fast enough for seasickness, she said. “It’s a subtle move. You might be looking at your phone or writing something and you look up and you’ve moved slightly so it’s just getting used to that vibe.”
For those wondering, Hanson said, yes, the whole house spins so you can even sit on the loo and spin.
The owner’s main difficulty in designing the house was having all the services coming down to one point and this technology is his intellectual property but the house is fully functional.
“All the wastewater, all the storm water, everything has a centralised system just like a house but it rotates.”
The house is also relocatable and can be picked up and taken elsewhere not just in New Zealand but in the world, she said.
“It’s totally portable. It could be moved to Dubai, it could be moved to anywhere in the world and then that site can be developed for just a normal Maraetai home.”
Since Dunick moved to Australia, the house has been rented out, both short-term and long-term, and while Hanson won’t give a price indication she said don’t be deceived by the low CV of $1.07 million, which is the CV for an ordinary three-bedroom Maraetai home, which this is not.
“It hasn’t taken into consideration that we have a rotational house that is potentially a first in the world so no, I don’t think that’s any reflection of what the price will be.”
- 179 Maraetai Drive, Maraetai, Auckland, is for sale by way of tender, closing March 28
