It may look like just another mansion in the D.C. suburbs but, if you go down to the basement, you will find what looks like a Main Street out of a movie set, with retro cars, antique shop fronts and cobblestone roads.
The home — a Colonial-style property in Potomac, Maryland — hit the market a year ago with a $4.5 million asking price. But this week, it has resurfaced on Twitter for its most unique feature: a basement designed to look like an old-timey town, complete with a movie theater and church.
The property, which sits at 12,000-square-feet and has seven bedrooms, is built in the typical style of a Colonial mansion. There is a red-brick facade and landscaped grounds on the outside while the inside boasts an opulent entryway with a chandelier and a staircase, historic Americana decor as well as a library with a fireplace and shelves lined with books. The grounds also have a pool, a tennis court and a two-bedroom guesthouse.
[Inman Slideshow]
But it is the property’s basement, which sits at a spacious 32 feet by 38 feet, that has been its star. Visitors who descend a wooden staircase will find a cobblestoned road stretching past antique shop fronts, a post office and even a vintage movie-theater with posters showing screenings for Mary Poppins and The Exorcist. While most of the 15 storefronts are decorations, one leads to a game room while the door to the Inn serves as the door to an actual bathroom.
An air of nostalgic, small-town charm can be found throughout the place — little gingerbread people decorate the windows while Christmas trees and posters for old movies are hung all over the walls. You will even find two vintage cars and an antique motorcycle on the town’s “streets.”
Lori Leasure, the property’s listing agent with Washington Fine Properties, told NBC’s Today that the owner was a car lover who created the mini-town as a cool space for his three kids to hang out.
“He always joked to me that they could have parties down there and he could just kind of hose down the basement floor when they were done,” Leasure told Today. “It’s just a really fun place.”