The Shroom

In a sea of center hall colonials, this house stands out

If your outrage meter is at 11 over the state of national and world affairs, let me do you a favor and divert you with some apolitical content on a topic completely lacking in any socially redeeming value.

Even though I have lived in the same house for the past 25 years and have no plans for moving any time soon, I am one of those people who religiously reviews the home sales portion of the newspaper and goes to neighborhood open houses as a “looky loo.” Some times I am just curious about a house that I’ve passed by many times or a new build, but I’ll admit that I do my fair share of clucking about other people’s design choices.

So how could I not love the Instagram account Zillow Gone Wild (and the subsequent TV series on HGTV, hosted by the charmingly goofy Jack McBrayer, best known from his role as an NBC page on 30 Rock)? A vacation getaway in an old missile silo? A house where the bedrooms were once jail cells? A nondescript Florida ranch house with a sex dungeon? A suburban tract home where all the rooms are decorated with a Steampunk vibe? Who are these people? And who is buying their weird dreams?

To my knowledge, a property in Bethesda, Maryland just across the District line, known variously as the Hobbit House, the Smurf House, and the Shroom (as labeled by the owners) has not been featured on Zillow Gone Wild. But it certainly merits a spot. Sometime back in the 1970s, the owners of an otherwise unremarkable stucco colonial decided to engage a futurist architect to cover the whole house in foam. Was he on something other than the high of his own creative genius? It certainly seems that way.

I missed the open house when this house was on the market back in 2018 but this video on Instagram with the original owners gives you a look at the interiors, as well as the back story of how it all went down in the first place. And check out the Redfin page after you watch the video. It shows what the house looks like when staged by real estate professionals plus the floor plans. Of all the surprises, the one that really struck me is that when this couple sold the place — where did they end up but across the street, in a thoroughly traditional and absolutely ordinary house. I guess the real estate folks are right — the most important thing in a house is location, location, location.