When he was a boy, James May wanted to build a real house out of Lego. With the help of television stardom, 3.2m plastic bricks and 2,000 members of the public, the Top Gear presenter fulfilled his childhood ambition earlier this summer by constructing a "very modern and funky" Lego property on the Denbies wine estate in Surrey.

May has set what he thinks should be a new world record: becoming the first man to live in a fully functioning house made of Lego. But the plastic brick house, and its tragic end, has affected him rather more profoundly.

With lurid Lego furniture, a working toilet, hot shower and a bed made from Lego bricks, the house was assembled by volunteers. "People were really enjoying it simply because these massive piles of coloured Lego were theirs to push together," says May. "It is a faintly spiritual activity that everybody connects with."

Resisting the impulse to wear the pair of Lego slippers that came with the house, May eased the pain caused by lying on the Lego bed by quaffing wine – in goblets made from Lego, naturally – from Denbies during his stay. "The bed was pretty hard but the house was better than a tent," he says. "I spent most of the evening playing with the mood lighting and marvelling at the beauty of Lego furniture because it's all so bright. The stripy Lego chairs and tables just look fab. I'd have them in my house."

Did he end up feeling like a Lego man? "I did wonder if once I stepped into the Lego house I would have walked through the hole into the Lego universe and when I stepped out again the whole world including the clouds and the sun would be made of Lego." Happily, May did not grow a large yellow head and "hands that were useless for holding anything other than a shovel".

The tale of May's house, however, which will be broadcast on BBC2 later this month as part of his new series, James May's Toy Stories, does not end so well. It was obstructing the grape harvest at Denbies so faced demolition. May wanted to buy it but does not have a garden so desperately sought an owner via Facebook. Legoland rejected it because it cost too much to dismantle, transport and reassemble. When no last-minute buyer was found, the house was destroyed.

"It broke my heart but the people I felt for were the teams of volunteers who worked really hard building it," says May.

Now he wants to build a Lego ship and sail it, as well as exploring the therapeutic possibilities of the little plastic brick and "why it affects us in this very beneficial, benign, hippy-trippy way".

"There are all sorts of things embodied in the Lego brick – geometry and mathematics and truth and proportion and shape and colour," says May.

"It's very deep. Everybody should have a box and play with it occasionally. It's a form of brain training as well. I can't see how it can be bad for you. Unless you tread on it."