Neon House Along I - 5 - What’s The Story?

Christian: [0:10] Welcome to another episode of the Awesome in Seattle podcast. This is your host, Christian Nossum of the Awesome Nossum Group at Wilson Realty Exchange, Inc, and I am joined today by my amazing co-host, Melanie Ghadamy. How are you, Mel?

Melanie: [0:21] I'm good.

Christian: [0:22] Good, good, good. How are you? Um, I am doing well. It's been a lot of driving today, a lot of house looking at stuff. Yeah. A lot of work as an agent, 'cause that's what we are, Seattle area real estate agents. Okay. Speaking of houses, today we are going to talk about a house that I guarantee all of you have seen if you've ever driven on I-5 through Seattle, especially north of downtown. You've probably driven past it and wondered, "What the heck is that neon house on the east side of I-5 on the opposite side of East Lake on the Capitol Hill side?" I'm sure you've gone, "What is going on with that? Why is it all lit up? Why does it say science is God or God is science?" I don't know what it says, some- something like that. What is going on there? So hopefully this episode will help you, eh, get some good conversation starters going for that next party so that you can really have some good conversations. That's- that's really the whole point. We have not talked to the owner. We have not interviewed them. This is all stuff that we have found online, so it could be incorrect, but we're pretty sure that most of this is accurate. So first off, let's talk about the house itself. Now, the house, like I said, is located on Capitol Hill. You can see it off of I-5, near Exit 168. It says, "Science is God," full of neon lights. There's an astronaut in the window, lots of glass, lots of steel. The last time, time the house was sold via the MLS was actually when this guy bought it, and back then the stats said that it was only 2,070 square feet, and it was a two bed, two bath, two story home with a basement. They have clearly done a massive remodel, because it looks more like it's four, maybe five stories at this point, plus a rooftop deck. I looked it up and there is a laundry list of permits done with the city. I actually looked up the city's permit department just because I was curious, uh, and it's basically been under constant construction since 2009. Back in 2004 when it last sold, it sold for only $450,000, and it was a pretty boring, standard looking house. Now, for a house that's typically this size in this area… Well, for a house that's a two bed, two bath, 2,000 square feet, which is what it used to be, it'd probably be worth 1.2 to 1.5 million-ish. But if this house the way it is now came on the market, and if you toned it down on the interior and with all, out all the lights and stuff, it'd probably be a two-plus million dollar house easily, um, if not more, 'cause it's, it seems pretty massive. What do you know about the inside of the house, Mel?

Melanie: [2:58] Yeah, I mean, I know a lot about the outside- … because I see it often.

Christian: [3:02] Yes, exactly.

Melanie: [3:03] The inside, it actually, I mean, what it features is three kitchens. Huh. One functions, so your traditional kitchen.

Christian: [3:10] Mm-hmm.

Melanie: [3:10] One's a copper and maroon- Kitchen. Huh.

Christian: [3:14] Weird.

Melanie: [3:14] Yeah, and the other one is more of like a bar, showpiece. No stove. Yeah, just more for entertainment purposes I'm assuming.

Christian: [3:21] Mm-hmm. Got it.

Melanie: [3:22] It also has a jacuzzi tub sourced from China. Hmm. And I'm assuming it's probably massive just from- Yeah … you know. Mm-hmm. Let's, I'm sure everything in that house is pretty big.

Christian: [3:31] Mm-hmm.

Melanie: [3:32] It has a elevator using air rather than hydraulics.

Christian: [3:36] Interesting.

Melanie: [3:37] Which is wild, yes.

Christian: [3:38] Yeah.

Melanie: [3:38] It has solar-powered machines that emit a frequency that crows don't like, and the owner said that he didn't want them pooping on everything, which is valid since the, or much of the outside is covered in glass, so-

Christian: [3:49] Yeah … Melanie: hence why he, he put those. Interesting. I've never even heard that that was an option. Me

Melanie: [3:54] too. Me too. Hmm.

Christian: [3:55] Learn something new. The guy's name is George Freeman, and I'm saying this because it's public record and also he's done interviews and talked about it, so I'm not releasing any confidential information or anything like that. He was originally from New York. He previously ran a 16-year-old and over dance club on Bourne Ave in the '70s and '80s. It was actually in an old church building, and it was a pretty popular place, but there were reports of drug use and other stuff. So the city council made a rule that you can no longer have underage dance clubs in the city, and that was done to force him to close that place and to prevent any copycats from popping up. So kind of- Hmm … I don't know, interesting there. From this interaction I'm guessing that Freeman himself ran for city council a few times trying, probably I assume, trying to reverse that rule.

Melanie: [4:47] Right.

Christian: [4:48] All right. So the house is like this because the owner said he purchased this home for the unparalleled views of the 4th of July fireworks, which makes complete sense. It's a perfect view for that. Mm-hmm. The house is a s- actually the pseudo headquarters. Eh, I don't know if pseudo's the right word. It is the, the headquarters of the Universal Life Church Montessori, which is an interfaith organization that or- ordains people online. And I haven't confirmed this, but I believe he did this and created this online so that he could help same-sex couples get married, which is pretty cool. The home itself is actually referred to as the rectory. So he named it the rectory. I think that's kind of what he refers to it all online. There's actually a website for it. Everything is referred to as the rectory. George is the head of the church. He holds church meetings there, invites friends to watch fireworks, and holds free weddings there as well. So I don't know if, what you gotta do to get a free wedding there, but you might be able to pull that one off. If you do, please invite me. I'd love to go see it. As to why he created this unique home, George said that, "We built this to use art as a means to proclaim that we are all children of the same universe. When people try to find who we are, they'll find out that our thinking, and my hope is that everybody would then take religion into their own hands and believe what you want to, but you just can't hurt anybody."

Melanie: [6:10] Hmm.

Christian: [6:10] Unquote.

Melanie: [6:11] All right.

Christian: [6:11] Yes.

Melanie: [6:12] Nice.

Christian: [6:12] Interesting.

Melanie: [6:13] How would you like to live next door to this house?

Christian: [6:17] Eh, I probably wouldn't like to- … because it's often brightly lit up, so that's gonna make it not as, like, peaceful. Yeah. And then, I mean, it seems like he has parties there a lot, so that might be a noise nuisance as well. Now, that said, it's literally next door or on the side of the freeway, so the freeway- Mm-hmm noise might drown out some of that stuff, and maybe your house is already built so well and soundproof to that you're not gonna really hear it when you're inside. But the lights, that's the part I think that would annoy me more, especially in the evening if you're trying to chill and watch the sunset or something like that and there's something going on next door. So- Right … I don't, I don't know if I would prefer it.

Melanie: [6:53] Yeah, exactly. And I mean, obviously property values of the neighbors around him are likely to decrease because of that. There's probably a lot of, you know, lights and parties, and people- Mm-hmm … don't really wanna live next door to that, so. Yeah.

Christian: [7:06] Yeah. That's a good point. I didn't really think of that. It might be tough to sell the, uh, the houses nearby- Mm-hmm … because of that. Yeah.

Melanie: [7:12] Hmm.

Christian: [7:13] Well, next time you drive down I-5 and you see the house, you will now have a ton more information. Right. Hope you guys enjoyed learning about this. This was fun for us to figure out. We've always driven past it and wondered. I wanna know this, are there any other famous homes in the Seattle area that you wanna learn about? If so, let us know. Send us a message. You can email us at christian@awesomenossum.com, or you can just text us. My phone number is 206-949-3048. All of our in- info is also right online. If you are thinking about potentially buying a house and you wanna understand how that process works, we help people do this all day, every day. We also help people sell their houses all day, every day. So if you are in that situation and you wanna talk to us 'cause you like how we do things, feel free to reach out. You can schedule a time to chat with us right online for free, AwesomeNossumGroup.com/schedule. Super easy. We're never gonna pressure you to do anything. It doesn't cost any money to chat with us. We are very laid back, as you can tell, and we love Seattle. We love talking about it. We work all over the Puget Sound area, not just Seattle. And that's it. Thank you for listening. Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Awesome in Seattle podcast. We'll see you in two weeks. See ya.

Melanie: [8:28] See you soon.

Christian: [8:29] Bye.

Melanie: [8:30] Bye.