The seller of what’s called the “Purple House” in suburban Minneapolis — not necessarily inspired by Prince — said she saw the color purple pop up constantly the week before she saw the listing.
She took it as a sign to buy the home, said listing agent Jennifer Briggs of the Perfect Match Properties team at Keller Williams Realty Integrity Lakes.
The owners purchased the playful, art-filled home in Plymouth, Minnesota, with all the original furniture and decor in June 2024 for $2.7 million.
Listed now at $2.9 million, with six bedrooms, four and a half bathrooms, and nearly 10,000 square feet on 36 acres, the whimsical home is seeking its next buyer attuned to appreciate the secret doorways, surrealist art and purple exterior.
Inside, the 2017-built home continues the purple theme with lighting details throughout, although those light colors can change with the use of a smart system and connected app that controls the more than 220 lighting and technical controls, said Briggs.
“They spared no expense or attention to detail,” Briggs told Homes.com in an interview.
The original owner was an engineer who custom-designed homes for fun, according to Briggs, and this was one of a handful of homes he used as a canvas. It took three years to construct.
The inspiration for the home was anything he liked, said Briggs, down to small tongue-in-cheek choices. Much of the decor mixes the otherworldly with vintage pieces.
An office features the front end of an old Plymouth turned into a desk with a bumper sticker reading, “I’m only speeding ‘cause I really have to poop.”
“It’s very playful and cheeky, it’s just fun little winks and nods in a lot of different ways throughout the house,” said Briggs.
A bathroom with a steampunk vibe, filled top to bottom with Edison-style light bulbs, metal pipes, clocks and a black toilet, is called the “Tesla bathroom,” after inventor and engineer Nikola Tesla. Built-in shelves across the home’s multiple floors house historical trinkets, such as a wheel hub from China, a vintage television and a perm machine circa the 1930s.
A pulley system made of rope, gears and bike parts holds an old streetlamp that serves as a hanging chandelier down three floors.
A circled curtain of crystals is suspended from the top floor to the main level through small openings in the ceiling and floor, while a discarded boat propeller serves as a coffee table in the primary bedroom.
In the primary, a custom bed took inspiration from a Viking ship and includes a built-in cat bed. Off the bedroom, a room set up solely for a hot tub overlooking the lake on the property sits below a chandelier featuring a person falling while holding candlesticks.
Behind a Coca-Cola refrigerator door is a hidden room with a hand-painted mural by Allegra Lockstadt that reads, “This room remembers what Earth forgot.” A sink in the main gathering space’s bar is shaped like a martini glass, and two blue alien figures sit at a table to chat in a room with zebra print carpet.
One bedroom has two hidden beds: One in a lofted area accessed by a ladder, another hidden behind a small opening in a sunken space. Moving a large piece of artwork in a stairwell reveals a secret opening to that bedroom.
The home was designed for entertainment, the designer told Briggs, yet its purposefully playful nature ensured it wasn't just for adults to hang out, while kids were sequestered to another part of the home, but "so that the kids could be a part of the family," she said.