A décor of coffins, crosses and a backyard cemetery has made a seemingly inconspicuous house in Maryland go viral, along with its agent.
The one-bedroom house, listed at 228 Townsend Avenue in Baltimore, first started gaining traction after New York Times technology reporter Taylor Lorenz shared a Zillow listing for what looks like a very ordinary gray, even cute, house on Twitter.
But while going through the listing photos, one finds a number of not-so-ordinary design choices: all-black cabinetry and furniture, black carpeting and chandeliers, a master bedroom with crosses and mirrors above the bed, coffin paintings and sculptures, and a basement with nothing but exposed wooden beams and two black leather armchairs. Another inexplicable detail lies in the numerous posters for the Oakland Raiders on the walls.
“I’ve learned in fair housing seminar after fair housing seminar, you do not talk about people,” Matt Godbey, the RE/MAX Results agent representing the property, told Slate. “You want me to tell you how many square feet or how long the driveway is or what it looks like inside, no problem.”
The only splashes of color in the listing photos come from two bright red pillows in the bedroom. And to truly hammer the vampire theme home, the back of the house has an outdoor patio that serves as a bar and has the words “Cemetery” written alongside a display of white crosses, fake graves and a crypt.
Owner Billy Nicholson first told the Baltimore Sun that he inherited the house from his mother in 2014 and used the opportunity to play around with his love of all things morbid.
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“It’s basically my twisted imagination coming to life,” he said, explaining that he spent the last seven years finding building details such as cemetery gates and coffins.
Listed for only $225,000, the house may soon sell given the attention it’s getting on the internet. Since the listing went viral, Godbey has had seven scheduled showings from people who found out about the property through the increased media attention.
Online, many called it creepy and compared it to a vampire’s lair while others commended Nicholson’s lack of care about what the world thought of his odd design choices.