News: a Chinese businessman who built a house covered by an artificial mountain on top of a 26-storey apartment block in Beijing has been told to remove it or face having it demolished.

Local media sources including South China Morning Post have reported that the man spent six years creating the structure using fake rocks but real trees and grass.

The artificial landscape covers the entire 1000-square-metre roof of the tower, but local urban management officials have told the owner the structure is illegal and issued him with an ultimatum to prove it was built with proper government permission or dismantle it within 15 days.

Residents of the high-end Park View apartment block in the city's Haidan district have complained that the two-storey house could cause structural damage to the building and have been regularly disturbed by noise from heavy machinery on the roof.

The villa's owner is reported to be a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine, who is quoted as saying: “Since I dare to live here, I am not worried about complaints." If the structure is not removed or its legality is not proven it could be forcibly demolished.

Last year, a five-storey house in the middle of a Chinese motorway was eventually demolished, while work recently began on a hotel built into the face of a water-filled quarry near Shanghai.

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Photography is by Xinhua/ChinaDaily.