NICHOLAS Logsdail, owner of the Lisson Gallery, is one of the art world’s most powerful figures. So it’s strange to discover that his first home was up a tree. “My parents had a big Arts & Crafts house in Buckinghamshire,” says Logsdail. When he was 14, he moved to the bottom of the garden.

“I’d built a treehouse. It had a first-floor bedroom, a room below, another bedroom and a balcony.” It was more like an apartment, really. “I lived there during the school holidays,” he smiles. “It had a paraffin stove, electricity and I hotwired it to install a telephone.”

Logsdail’s first home purchase was in 1967 in Bell Street, Marylebone. “I was a country boy. I came out of Marylebone Station, didn’t know London, turned into Bell Street….” Since then Logsdail, 59, has owned endless buildings in the street. He bought number 68 when he first married, number 54 in 1991, which he turned into his gallery, the Lisson, and 27, where he lives. Oh, and 31-37 where he lived with his second wife. “I don’t have a passion for property,” he claims. “I just love interesting buildings.”

He designed the first gallery, working with the builders. “I’m an amateur architect,” explains Logsdail, who represents artists Julian Opie, Douglas Gordon and Anish Kapoor. “We made it from two early-19th century tumbledown buildings I bought in 1966 and 1972.” The current Bell Street premises were a collaboration with Modernist architect Tony Fretton.

“We worked together on the design for two years.” The exterior of the new build has metal-clad panels and large glazed picture windows, while the interior gallery space was originally three back yards. “It has a feelgood factor, doesn’t it?”

In 1981, Logsdail found another derelict property – a 40,000sq ft brownstone block of 22 flats on New York’s Lower East Side.

Now the Notting Hill of New York, at the time the area was rough. “It had been a drug dealers’ squat and was boarded up.

The price was $1,000 an apartment – $22,000 in total. Lots of people were after it. I had to find the 10 per cent deposit within two hours.”

Logsdail acted instantly and acquired the building. Then the problems started.

“There was a $45,000 bill to pay, because the city taxes hadn’t been paid for 15 years. Things had to be done urgently to stop squatters moving in,” he says.

“Suddenly I owed $150,000 for upkeep plus $150,000 legal costs. I’d bitten off more than I could chew.” A year later he sold the building. “I recouped my costs and kept three large apartments.” Now he owns only one flat.

The experience did not discourage him from tackling another derelict building that needed his artistic touch – a 14th century farmhouse in a charming village in the Maltese island of Gozo. He bought it in 1984 for £8,000 and took 18 years to restore it. “I spent nearly two decades mixing cement and carrying around building blocks.” It now has a private courtyard, large mill room, kitchen, five double bedrooms and a tower with bedrooms offering island views. “It’s beautiful. I was sad to give it away when I divorced.”

In 2003, Logsdail visited friends in Kenya. “I thought I’d get some dreaded disease, be robbed and murdered.”

Instead he discovered Lamu – “an idyllic, safe island on the Indian Ocean” – and an 18th century, 6,000sq ft Swahili house with exquisite carvings and stacks of antique furniture. An elderly English couple were selling the house and contents.

“It has an exotic Arabian Nights feel and the original harem quarters,” he divulges.

“I took a no-money down lease for five years with an option to buy at a fixed price – on the condition that I restored the building. It wasn’t difficult to organise, just slow.”

To rent the Lamu house for £1,000 to £2,000 a week, email Nicholas@lisson.

co.uk. To rent the Gozo house, email Caroline Logsdail at stellamaris safeserve.com.

Artistic touches: Nicholas Logsdail (above) restored this 14th century farmhouse in Gozo, with its spacious mill room (below) and (above, right) terrace for entertaining, and hammock for relaxing (above, far left).