The protagonist of our story is a young entrepreneur known only by his nickname, “Coastline”, who grew up near the sea, spending most of his time fishing and taking in the beautiful sunsets of Dongshan County, a large island in the South China Sea.

One night in 2018, while drinking with his good friend, architect Dong Xinmeng, he started talking about how great it would be to have a floating home, so he could fish and drink beer all day.

One drink led to another, and by the end of the night, they had decided to make his dream a reality. Dongshan County has a long history of sea fishing and aquaculture, so Coastline and his architect friend took inspiration from their large rafts to build the buoyant base of the mansion.

The two friends originally planned to move together into the floating mansion, and since land wasn’t a problem, they decided to make it 600 square feet in size. That however made it too big to build on land, as Dongshan doesn’t have a large enough port.

At first, they worked in the shallow waters of a dock, but the tide was giving them problems, so they dragged the platform to the open sea and started work on the home itself.

Building a home on a floating base turned out to be more problematic than Coastline had imagined. The platform bobbed up and down as workers moved on it, and the strong winds didn’t help things either.

The sturdy structure was built using steel, and even though Coastline wanted to incorporate as much glass as possible into the design, he finally understood that he had to sacrifice looks for sturdiness and reliability.

Coastline’s amazing floating home is held in place by 16 metal anchors, each weighing about a ton. If the owners ever want to move it, all they have to do is raise these anchors and have a powerboat tow the mansion to its new location.

At 600 square meters, this amazing floating home has plenty of both indoor and outdoor space. After it was completed, in 2019, Coastline started using it as a vacation place where he could be alone, fish all day and just reflect on his life and his future plans.

The floating home, named Haixi, offers a 360-degree view of the sea, and is located in a calm bay, about 500 meters from the coast of Dongshan. It cost Coastline and Dong Xinmeng only 4 million yuan ($61,200), which he considers a bargain.

Even though Coastline and his friend designed the floating mansion to withstand powerful winds, he admits that there is always a risk that a typhoon destroys it. Still, it’s a risk they knew from the start, and at just 400,000 yuan, he considers it worth the risk.