Bruce also worked on his own property at Balcaskie, Fife, which he bought in 1665, and which does survive intact, although with later alterations. He doubled the L-plan house to a near-symmetrical U-plan, and may have built the curving wing-walls and linking pavilions. Gifford, however, attributes these to a later building phase. The curving walls, a form later seen at Hopetoun, were a new innovation if Bruce did carry them out, possibly inspired by the work of the Italian Gian Lorenzo Bernini. In the gardens he laid out parterres and stepped "Italian" terraces, with a vista leading the eye to the Bass Rock, all inspired by French baroque gardens such as Vaux-le-Vicomte. Internally, Bruce created a new layout of rooms, and it was for his continental-inspired internal planning, as much as his exterior design, that he was sought after as an architect.