1975 Illinois Time Capsule House Featuring Bold Shag Carpet Sells in Days
Nostalgia is hot right now and multiple offers came quickly for one house with a lot of it.
The home in East Dubuque, IL was built in 1975 and hasn’t changed much since.
“The owner passed away this summer [and] she built that house exactly the way she wanted to have it. All of her visions came to life back in 1975 when she built her dream house,” says listing agent Olta Shabani with Equity Real Estate Group. “It looks just like a complete time capsule.”
That time capsule with plenty of shag carpet was listed for $259,900.
“I got offers within the first three days that we were on the market,” she says. “I really wanted to show in the pictures just the way that the house is. I didn’t want to change anything. I didn’t think it was appropriate for this type of house to virtually stage. I wanted people to see the character in it.”
The three-bedroom and three-bathroom house is certainly not a gray box like we’re used to seeing nowadays.
“It has always been known as the coolest house in the area,” Shabani says, adding if the walls could talk, “I think you would hear a lot of gatherings around the holidays. You would hear a lot of music. You would hear fun. I just could tell that this was a fun house.”
Red is a dominant color on the main level, with a red and black door, kitchen, and sunken living room.
“My favorite thing is the sunken living room,” she says. “It is just so massive and the stone fireplace there is really a focal point in that whole entire main level.”
Red and stone also dominate the huge lower level, which at about the same size as the upper level brings the house to 4,718 square feet, divided about evenly between the two floors.
“The basement has all red carpeting. The bar is really cool. There’s a really nice wet bar area,” Shabani explains. “There’s also another kitchen area in the basement along with another bathroom and it does walk out to the backyard.”
Green is another prominent color. In the main living areas, it covers almost everything that isn’t red including banisters and support poles.
“My [other] favorite part in the house aside from the sunken living room are the stairs,” she says, adding that in addition to being very green, they are also solid stairs.
Blue also has a presence, mostly in the bedrooms and everything has stood the test of time.
“The carpet is in excellent shape if your style is that thick shag carpeting,” Shabani says, with a laugh. “They don’t make carpet today the way they used to back in the 70s, so it’s in very, very good shape.”
There’s even carpet in the bathrooms, as many homes had back then.
“It was in style, I guess, back in the day and clearly it was quality because it lasted as long as it did.”
Shabani says the buyer has plans for the place.
“I know his main goal is to keep as much of the original character as possible while updating the things that would need to be updated right away, like fixtures and lighting and all that stuff.”
The home has gotten a lot of attention online, which Shabani warned the seller’s family about.
“I don’t want my sellers to get upset by reading negative comments, so I made sure to obviously give them a heads up,” she says. “They’re not worried about that. They know their mom had a very impressive house, and it has definitely gotten a lot of people’s attention.”
Shabani says the house could teach us all a few things.
“[The owner] lived into her 90s so I think that just tells you that maybe we just need to add a little bit more color into our lives and maybe we’ll all make it into our 90s,” she says. “And do whatever we want and not care what anybody thinks and build a house according to your style and not worry if somebody else is going to like it or not.”
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