His Duck Reach property overlooking Cataract Gorge has been his "little enclave". Now, after nearly 30 years splitting his time between the 130-year-old estate and the world, he has put it on the market.

With an asking price of $3.2 million, the listing is believed to be the most expensive in Launceston history.

But Mr Morton came to it through serendipity.

"I spent the last part of my youth in Launceston and I knew of this property, and I thought how wonderful it would be to live there," he said.

He was raised on Flinders Island at a family home at Wybalenna, before boarding school in Hobart, two years in Launceston, and "fleeing to Melbourne with bright eyes."

About 20 years later he was back to do some work with the Queen Victoria Museum with some pottery that had been salvaged from a wreck, and arrived at his appointment early.

"I wandered over next door to Roberts Real Estate and looked in the window and there was this property for sale," he said.

"I thought, 'I have to have it'. You know, 'It's meant to be mine'.

"I rushed back to Sydney to make some money so that I could afford to buy it - I sold things that I said I would never sell - and I left my father in charge. I said to dad, 'Go to that auction. I don't care what it costs. Get that property.' So he did, and luckily we got it.

"I think it was actually front page of The Examiner, because it [sold for] four times their estimate."

The estate attracts peregrine falcons and other birdlife, wallabies and potoroos - he has even seen a quoll. Outside the realm of natives, the peacocks who live around the First Basin sometimes gather in a big pine tree on the front lawn.

There are two residences, both crafted of beautiful 30-inch thick bluestone that was quarried from the very site they sit on. One is newly renovated and is in immaculate condition. The other's interior is a wreck, destroyed in a fire in 2011. Mr Morton said a valuer estimated it would cost between $300,000 and $400,000 to repair.

In a terrible irony, the home and its contents - over a million dollars worth of art and antiques - were razed in a fire caused by the security system installed to protect them.

"A battery pack blew up," Mr Morton said.

"If there was any security break an alert would go to four people alerting them of an intruder.

"The moving sensors would often be set off by a spider. So the fact the alarms weren't set off by a fire was an enormous mystery until we realised that the battery pack which blew up was the back-up to the security system. It overheated, blew up, and took the security system out."

After his original purchase in 1991, Mr Morton is selling in order to live full-time in Sydney and stop "living two half-lives" between locations.

But he said he has knocked back offers from "enormously wealthy billionaires" who didn't understand the soul of the place.

Instead, it will most likely go to buyers interested in restoring it, and using it as tourist accomodation with a handful of extra buildings in keeping with the surrounding aesthetic.

"I'd rather take less money to sell it to the right person," he said. "This area is just magic."

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