At first glance, you might overlook this three-bedroom, brick house in Akron, OH, and never know what colorful interior (and past) lies behind the front door.

But it shouldn’t be too hard to catch the spirit of this 1,441-square-foot charmer—whoever wrote the listing sure did!

“For a few, creativity flows like an unending stream, painting the canvas of our world with strokes of brilliance that endure on walls and canvases, across wood and stone, upon floors and ceilings,” it reads.

Indeed, this house abounds with imagination. From the ceilings and walls, awash in hand-painted murals, to the flower-adorned kitchen cabinets, the Cape Cod-style home has been a showcase for artistic expression.

The dwelling’s surprising interior has made the home a social-media hit.

Here’s the heartwarming story of this house, which was built in 1942.

‘One mural turned into 8 or 9’

“The guy who used to live there, Don Nichols, was a really interesting guy,” says listing agent Eric Cooper, of Coldwell Banker Schmidt Realty. “He was a Navy veteran who served in Vietnam. He was also a boxer, a semipro wrestler, and the three-time president of the boilermakers union.”

Apparently, he also appreciated art.

“He commissioned a local artist named Ralph Herzog, who painted murals mostly on commercial buildings, to come to his house and paint one mural,” Cooper explains. “Over the years, they struck up a friendship, and one mural turned into eight or nine.”

Herzog and Nichols established a creative collaboration in which Nichols provided the canvas, and Herzog turned his creativity loose on it throughout the house.

“Nestled within the humble confines of a brick-and-mortar Cape Cod dwelling, a man was bestowed a canvas to express the vivid tableau of his soul,” the listing rhapsodizes.

Sadly, Herzog died in 2020, and Nichols died in 2022. The murals remain as a legacy of their friendship—at least for now.

“I went to high school with Don’s daughter, and she was hoping to find someone that would make every effort to preserve the home,” Cooper says.

‘Several offers on the home’

The nominally priced abode is already in contingent sale status, after just a week on the market.

“We have had several offers on the home already and initially made it a point to vet people, with the hopes they would keep the home and not paint over it,” Cooper says. “Obviously, we can’t guarantee that they won’t, but we are hoping they will keep it that way.”

He says the majority of prospective buyers were interested in the home because they knew the artwork was there.

“Some people just wanted to have a look, but most came in because they appreciated it was there and stated they will be leaving it as is,” Cooper reports. “Ralph used a style of painting called Fresco that involves painting on wet plaster. He used this technique in the dining room.”

Even the sunroom has a storied history.

“It has these wooden floors that came from a West Virginian church close to where Don grew up,” Cooper says. “When they razed the church, he took them and added them to the sunroom. There is also quite a bit of stained glass in the home, as well as an antique weather vane. It really has a lot of character for a small home.”

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