The old adage says when you sell a home, it should be a neutral canvas. One Northern Virginia couple ignored that advice — their real estate listing became the most-searched in the United States last week.
And, the Bristow, Virginia home is now under contract.
Zakk Farkas, a 37-year-old lover of heavy metal music and ‘Stranger Things,’ is a talented DIYer, who built a hidden room in the basement of the home he shares with his wife, Nikki, and their two young children.
“It’s a two-story home, four bedrooms, just over 3,000 feet,” Farkas told WTOP. The home listing reads: “Gorgeous two-story home with a VERY unique and fun hidden feature in the finished basement!”
When the hidden room opens, it reveals a dark hallway, with a huge framed replica of Vigo the Carpathian, the bloodthirsty medieval sorcerer in the movie “Ghostbusters II.” The floor looks as though it’s red lava.
Since the room is, well, hidden, Farkas created a users guide tutorial video to assist potential homebuyers and their real estate agents who wanted to see the home in person.
“First you have to find a rusty nail, that actually slides a board into the drywall, and that will open the hidden room,” said Farkas.
Watch the guided tour above.
Farkas said the project cost about $2,000, adding that he had been thinking about creating it, even before he and his wife bought the Bristow home: “I told my wife, I’m finally going to get my opportunity to build a hidden room — what adult has never dreamed of having a hidden room, when they were a kid.”
Zakk is a talented guitarist, with tattoos and piercings, who once gave his wife a framed photo of WTOP’s Neal Augenstein for Valentine’s Day — but that’s another story.
He and his 3-year-old son have loved playing “the floor is lava,” in the hidden room.
“It honestly serves no purpose, it’s just a living, breathing art piece,” he said. “I didn’t want it to be an extension of the home at all — I wanted to step into a totally different world.”
Farkas created a YouTube channel, Home DeGore, to showcase the hidden room and some of his other DIY projects.
Most-viewed home listing in the U.S.
While Farkas’ handiwork created a home that he and his family enjoyed, the idea of marketing a stylized room caused some discussion.
I asked if he thought of disassembling the hidden room before putting the home on the market: “The funny thing about it is the listing agent is my father in law,” laughed Farkas. “I had to convince him to go against his judgment.”
The listing went viral. According to Realtor.com, “A very vanilla Virginia home with a creepy hidden dungeon is the week’s most popular listing.”
But did that end up in selling the home?
“We went quite over normal market value at first, and then slowly realized that this is not everybody’s cup of tea, and we needed to come back to reality,” he said, which resulted in the home now being under contract.
