In 1675, Bruce bought the estate of Loch Leven from the Earl of Morton. The estate included an old manor near Kinross, as well as the ruins of Loch Leven Castle, famous as the jail of Mary, Queen of Scots. After carrying out repairs on the old manor, and beginning to lay out the gardens, Bruce began work on his new home, Kinross House, in 1686, employing master mason Thomas Bauchop. The Palladian building bears some resemblance to Roger Pratt's Coleshill House of 1660 (demolished), but with features Bruce derived from French sources. These features, ultimately classical and Italian in origin, include the rusticated basement stonework, and the giant order of corinthian pilasters, the latter possibly deriving from Bernini's first designs for the Louvre. Following Bruce's fall from favour, he found himself increasingly in debt, which delayed the completion of the house until 1693. Kinross was one of the earliest Palladian-style country houses in Scotland, and was recognised as one of the finest buildings in the country; Daniel Defoe described it as "the most beautiful and regular piece of Architecture in Scotland", and Thomas Pennant called Kinross "the first good house of regular architecture in North Britain".