Brooklyn and Dylan’s three-story house in Vershire is a real head-turner — if you’re Linda Blair in The Exorcist. A three-story cacophony of color and dreadful design decisions, the 3,344-square-foot abode on stilts is what co-owner Brooklyn described as “our nightmare” in Season 7, Episode 4 of the HGTV hit series “Ugliest House in America.”
“I showed it to [Dylan] as a joke initially, and he’s like, ‘I kinda like it!’” Brooklyn recalled in the episode.
“Once I saw the tree in the house, I was like, That’s pretty cool,” Dylan replied. So the twentysomething couple — whom HGTV identifies only by their first names — plunked down for the place, monkey-themed kitchen cabinets, wall-mounted swordfish and all. The real estate site Zillow cites its most recent sale price at $505,000.
Nicknamed the “Mishmosh Hodgepodge” by mononymous actor/comedian Retta, the show’s host, Brooklyn and Dylan’s hideous hideaway is one of five finalists vying this week to be crowned the Ugliest House in America. The, um, winner of that dubious distinction will receive a $150,000 renovation by designer Alison Victoria, courtesy of HGTV. As Dylan put it on the show, “We definitely want to make it less circus-like.”
Indeed, the Mishmosh Hodgepodge, which was built in 2003 on 1.4 acres, has an interior blue-and-orange color scheme straight out of the New York Mets’ locker room, with a papier-mâché, bird-themed railing on the stairwell that is definitely not up to code. The sunken, pool-themed living room features seating made from less-than-cushy material: concrete. Remarked Retta: “I look at your couches, and I think: hemorrhoids.”
Next on the tour of the ’70s-style swinger hideaway/hippie commune is the “party bathroom,” with its shards of mirrors glued to every surface, reminiscent of a fifth grader’s art project. Then it’s on to the main bedroom and bathroom, with their thatched-twig ceilings that allow spiders to drop in on a nightly basis. Ick!
While it’s fair to say Brooklyn and Dylan’s house might be not everyone’s cup of tea (or hemlock), it has a certain kitschiness that would appeal to some of Vermont’s more artsy types. The same cannot be said for the competition. In the pantheon of butt-ugly, Brooklyn and Dylan are up against some next-level grotesquerie.
They include the “Mirrored Mayhem” in Blanca, Colo., an “off-the-grid collage of chaos” with mirrors everywhere but where they’re needed (i.e., over the bathroom sink); the “Potpourri of Pastels” in Chicago, with glitter literally covering every surface; the “Pit-Full Dingle-Dangle Row House,” a “bottomless pit of ugly” in St. Louis with dangling balls of wood in random spots; and the medieval knight-themed “D&D Castle” in Tucson, Ariz., with, inexplicably, a plaster sculpture of a half-nude Marilyn Monroe jutting from one wall.
The winning home, and its renovation, will be featured in the season finale on Wednesday, February 4, at 8 p.m. on HGTV. For a season recap of “Ugliest House in America,” click here.
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