For a cool $1.5 million, a prospective homeowner could live inside a mushroom. Well, a house designed to look like one, anyway.
The current owner of the so-called “Mushroom House” in the Bethesda suburbs is putting the home on sale this weekend. With a polyurethane foam coating around its exterior, the distinctive house has been something of a landmark in the area since its redesign in the 1970s.
“I just think that everybody is so busy today with work and life and stress and it’s special to be able to come home to a house that is really fun and comfortable,” Jill Schwartz, a real-estate agent selling the home, said.
Current owner Brian Vaughn bought the house on 4949 Allan Road in 2015 and since has remodeled the basement, overhauled the kitchen and laundry rooms, refinished the patio and refurbished the polyurethane shell and painting. Schwartz said the intention was to modernize the house without losing its initial appeal.
The house was built in 1923, and remodeled about 50 years later by then-owners Edward and Frances Garfinkle. Futuristic architect Roy Mason designed the new look, which featured 30-foot ceilings and unusual curves and arches.
The house now also includes a wet bar with a ladder leading to a loft and a grotto with a built-in reading nook and skylight. There is also a separate apartment on the property.
Schwartz described it as “perfect for an artist, writer or bachelor” while also being family friendly and the “ultimate place for hide-and-seek.”
The asking price is $1.529 million.
“It’s certainly unorthodox and I think a lot of people are uncomfortable with unorthodox,” Vaughn previously told Bethesda Beat. “It’s almost more fun. Having the same old thing that everybody else does just doesn’t have the same joie de vivre.”
Via Jill Schwartz