“What I know about art you could write on the edge of a razor blade,” Blackmore adds.

The businessman has just jetted back into Sydney after delivering a speech on the Gold Coast for the marine industry entitled Building a Successful Business.

Blackmore has certainly done just that, given he owns 25 per cent of Blackmores, which has a market capitalisation of $2.7 billion and has long been riding the crest of the sharemarket wave.

Australians are now spending more on complementary health products than medicine.

In the past year Blackmores Limited reportedly processed 2.2 billion tablets of minerals, vitamins and herbs, roughly equivalent to 75,000 bottles and 8.7 million tablets a day. Its share price is hovering at about $158.

Decorated by Blackmore’s wife Caroline Furlong, the contemporary Newport house is a paean to Asian art, particularly Javanese and Balinese.

A giant shell chandelier dominates the dining area while thick white candles are massed on the wooden coffee table.

A built-in aquarium separates the lounge area from the TV media room while a Chairman Mao tapestry dominates the wooden stairwell leading to the lower bedrooms.

Large pieces of coral and even larger shells, as well as elaborate Indonesian headwear, adorn the dark wooden furniture, while in a nod to Blackmore’s enduring love of the sea a life-size fibreglass model of a stingray decorates a wall.

But of course the money shot is the view of Pittwater and hundreds of bobbing yachts, which can be accessed from Blackmore’s private wooden jetty jutting out into the water.

His luxury cruiser, Ammonite, is nestled in a private berth.

Despite his acknowledged lack of empathy with the art world, Blackmore does have a favourite work — the bronze bust of his ­beloved father, renowned naturopath Maurice Blackmore, who founded the company in 1930.

Maurice’s ashes are contained in the bust, which enjoys pride of place on the stairwell of the five-level house Blackmore and Furlong have occupied for 20 years.

Blackmore swapped his townhouse in Manly with a friend who had long owned the Prince Alfred Drive, Newport house, because he longed to be closer to the water to indulge in his yachts.

“One of my close mates owned this Newport house,” he says.

“He and his wife split up and he took my townhouse and I moved into this house. I paid him $300,000 to swap it over.”

Central to the home is a white galley-style kitchen, but Blackmore is uninterested in preparing meals, claiming he cannot cook — unless it’s porridge.

He reckons he is more interested in finding a new house, saying he and Furlong have been looking for ages for a new home on Sydney’s northern beaches.

“I want to be on the water but the front drive of this house is a bit intimidating. It’s a bit of an effort to get the rubbish bins out,” he says.

Blackmore says he has no idea how much he would pay for a new house, adding that “we are only kicking tyres, it’s what you do when you have been in a house as long as us”.

The couple, who married three years ago, also own an apartment on Queensland’s Hamilton Island where Blackmore, who has strong political connections, spends much of his leisure time.

A typical day for Blackmore starts at 6.30am, when he and Furlong head down to Bilgola Beach for a walk with the dogs and for a swim.

“Sometimes I have done my emails before that,” he says.

“But I don’t get to work until 10am. I have an office at home, when in Sydney I will work until 7pm. I love going to work.”

Apart from Furlong and her daughter Imogen, the Newport house’s other occupants are two grey poodles, Rocky and Spike.

They reside on doggie beds by the front door, awaiting the return of their mistress, Furlong, each night.