If poisoning my brain with hundreds of hours of House Hunters, House Hunters International, Tiny House Hunters, and — once, when I was stuck at the dentist — Lake House Hunters has taught me anything, it’s that finding your dream home is a long and arduous process. You have to invest time and money. You have to compromise. You have to constantly be reassessing what you’re looking for. For instance, is an open-concept kitchen a nonnegotiable? Do you want to leave some room in your budget for renovations? And, of course, does the house have an extensive and decadent fully stocked BDSM dungeon lurking beneath an otherwise unassuming exterior?
For those who refuse to budge on the latter, a colonial home in Maple Glen, Pennsylvania — a convenient suburb of Philadelphia — may be exactly what you’re looking for. The house boasts five bedrooms and two-and-a-half bathrooms, three fireplaces, a breakfast room, and a finished basement decorated with rugs, mirrors, two Saint Andrew’s crosses, whips, chains, a bondage bed with a built-in pillory, and some other wooden thing that I’ve never seen before and can’t find via the Google search terms I’m using. Use your imagination.
The house’s asking price in $750,000, and it’s being sold fully furnished. It’s also rentable as the “Maison XS” villa on Airbnb for those who want to take a fuck vacation to suburban Pennsylvania. The listing has gone viral since it first went up, and some sites — like Redfin, whose listing has been circulating the most frequently — have removed all mentions and photos of the dungeon. Others, like Zillow, still bill it as “50 shades of Maple Glen.”
The Cut spoke to realtor Melissa Leonard shortly after this change, which had left her frustrated. “They’re not letting me portray the house as it is,” she said. “I think if they show up at this house and they don’t expect it, I don’t want someone bringing children down there.” Still, she says, “a million people” want to see it.
“It’s a beautiful suburban home in a great school district and a great location,” Leonard added.
Time will tell what the lucky buyer ends up doing with the space. In the meantime, I can only pray that HGTV execs get started on Sex Dungeon Hunters.
