[ Camera shutter clicks ] Roxanne: Ohh!

That one's going to play with the light really well.

It's a little bit lopsided, lover.

George: It'll turn around to the front.

There, it's perfect.

Roxanne: That is just amazing.

[ Camera shutter clicks ] George: The question of how puzzles have seeped into our lives, to be honest, it's pervasive.

Everything that we see, do, buy, or make, we first think, "Well, could this be a puzzle?"

I was a computer programmer, and I wound up in California with Bank of America building computer systems for them.

It was only when I retired that I discovered that you still have to do something.

So I thought, "Well, what about puzzles?"

This is a dead giveaway.

Roxanne: When I look at these things, this is -- This is my life spread out.

I've got an eidetic memory.

Lots of images and events and things that were going on when each of these puzzles was -- was produced.

George: It's a very queer lot, the puzzlers.

I'm not the only person in the world that likes puzzles.

There are other people.

And that was the realization.

Some people describe this as a combination of a regular Skewb, 'cause this turns like a Skewb, but this is like a Dino Cube.

George: The opportunity came up to live wherever I wanted.

That's how we wound up in Boca Raton.

♪♪ We bought this house without actually knowing the community that we were buying into.

♪♪ We don't like this.

This is just, like, kitschy to me.

They didn't know what they were getting, either.

George: This one looks like an institution.

Oh, it's terrible.

We have an overriding goal, and it's this museum of puzzles.

A normal collection would be something like a thousand puzzles.

Roxanne: We have 55,000?

George: About between 50,000 and 60,000.

-Roxanne: Yeah.

-George: We've got puzzles of all different sizes, all different shapes.

[ Grunts ] I was told that we're not allowed to have museums here, -'cause people lived here.

-Yeah.

I said, "Oh, okay.

It's not a museum, then."

These rings came from the Dalgety collection.

I didn't see that.

You could spend days in here, actually.

You can get here many different ways.

One is to look up Google Maps.

Look up Puzzle Museum on Google Maps.

It's the first thing that shows up.

Okay, we go to the next room?

More puzzles, more puzzles, more puzzles, all.

Seven pieces.

What do they look like?

-Woman: Soma.

-Soma cube.

Absolutely.

How did he get it in the bottle?

Man: Yeah.

George: There are no larger collections of puzzles in the world than this.

Roxanne: I would have to arguably say we have the largest collection of puzzles anywhere in the universe.

You can pick which one you want to see first, or maybe you just want to see everything?

In general -- Yeah, everything.

Each one of them has a soul.

♪♪ Roxanne: I think another thing that's really important is how many collections of collections -we have in this collection.

-Collections.

Roxanne: Collections of collections, yeah.

Of puzzles, so the fact that we've come into the picture, we've collected collections.

So we're having collections of collections of collections.

This one here in front of it is the first jigsaw puzzle ever made.

It's valueless.

♪♪ It's priceless.

It's only worth what people are willing to spend on it.

To put a dollar amount on it, I mean -- It seems to be very crass.

And then we said, "We're going to put our stamp on this house."

And so we put a mosaic that says Puzzle Palace right here.

So in many ways we've made this house unsellable.

[ Man grunts ] Roxanne: That's got to be George, then.

This is another puzzle that's been about a year in the making.

There he is!

-Man #2: And put the -- -Man: Let's just put it first.

And then once we got it dialed in, I'll go readjust the head.

♪♪ George: We both had our own identities, but when we got together, we formed sort of like a super identity.

The puzzle itself is called a disentanglement type of puzzle.

Roxanne: There's a rope belt around us.

You take the rope belt off to be able to solve it.

George: It shows that we're tied together.

♪♪ We found out that we could do anything we wanted to do.

We don't have to have permission.

My original intent was not to marry Roxanne, but rather just to have a convenient lover.

[ Panting ] Roxanne: I'm 22 years younger than he is.

-Is that right?

Yeah.

-George: Yeah.

-Still.

-Roxanne: Still today.

And -- But we're the same -- You know, I married -- I married myself.

We came together because of puzzles.

There's no denying.

George: I have a nice workshop, and I like to build and prototype puzzles.

Roxanne is mainly going to auction houses and looking for specific puzzles to fill out our collection.

Perfect.

1800.

Wow.

I got to have that one.

Alright.

So she's the hunter and collector, and I'm sort of like the builder and thinker.

[ Both laugh ] When we wake up in the morning, and you can just walk down the hall, and you just see one on the shelf and -- Roxanne: You pick it up and you start playing.

George: Yeah, you start playing with it, and then next thing you know, it's lunchtime.

-Okay.

-Roxanne: You like it?

George: This is a good one.

Now we have to figure out how to put it all back together.

♪♪ It's not a good business to be in, but it gives a puzzle person a lot of inner joy and passion.

This puzzle is quite challenging, but it's a work of art.

-George: There it is.

-[ Person applauding ] Bravo.

And that's what you see here.

Every single one of these puzzles here comes from someone passionate about it.

Yeah.

♪♪ ♪♪ Damn.

♪♪ [ Sighs ] That's a shame.

♪♪ That's cool.

♪♪ This particular one, uh, shared an intense love of puzzles, probably more than my love.

Roxanne: Like this.

Right in there like that.

Ta-da!

See, who's clever?

Alright.

I made and she made a very big step in leaving behind a former life.

Roxanne: I was in a miserable relationship and doing anything I could to escape.

George: My ex-wife felt bad for me because I didn't have any place to put the puzzles, and she could shut the door so we wouldn't have to see any.

♪♪ My life had settled down to a very predictable rhythm.

You don't know what you're missing.

Roxanne: Oh, my God.

What is that?

George: It looks haunted.

You think?

Roxanne: Oh, that's terrible.

George: When she started dating other guys, I felt this intense jealousy.

It was physical.

My stomach hurt.

And I called her up, and I told her, you know, "Stop dating other guys!

I want you."

And she said, "Well, how much do you want me," sort of thing, you know?

I felt I had to make a commitment to stop her philandering.

That kind of makes me sound like a whore.

-Yeah.

-[ Laughs ] Woman: It's official.

George: We both walked away with a suitcase in each hand.

-That's it.

-Roxanne: Yeah.

And our puzzles.

George: And the regret is that I left two children who now despise me.

When they learn more about life, I think they'll accept me more.

We have a freedom that I've never experienced before.

We don't care what people think.

We just do what we want to do.

And the whole world belongs to us.

Roxanne: I'm finally alive.

I guess that's the only way I can say it.

Oh, Uma?

Is it Uma Thurman?

I don't want to be anywhere else.

I don't want to be with anyone else.

Gosh.

Oh, here.

There we go.

What are we doing, lover?

[ Both murmuring indistinctly ] George: Why are puzzles appealing to people?

Roxanne: Okay.

Alright.

Thank you.

George: Because they all represent problems that need to be solved.

-Roxanne: Can you get it on?

-George: Yeah, I can.

There.

That's on an angle.

I like that.

George: You have to be able to analyze how they go together, how they come apart.

Roxanne: Okay.

Okay, lover.

George: The better you are at solving problems, the less frustrated you will be with living.

This is the core of my theory of puzzles.

No, no, you had it right.

Put it -- Put it back over his head.

I had to make up my own reason why I am what I am, why I'm here, why I'm living.

And I came to the conclusion that my purpose in life was to live life to the fullest.

[ Person applauding ] Lots of thought goes behind every single one of these puzzles.

[ Camera shutter clicks ] The puzzle has to be made with tremendous accuracy.

♪♪ I want to take my love of puzzles and explain to people how precious they are.

Every single one.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪