This mansion for sale has an entire fake town in the basement

Turns out you can have so much money that you don't know what to do with it, so you decide to build an entire fake town that looks like the set of a 1930s Christmas movie in your basement... and then you decide to sell your house. Twitter user @victoriaxxviii turned our attention toward a truly baffling house listed for sale in Potomac, MD. You simply have to see this thing.

From the outside, it looks like your standard, insane mansion. According to the Washington Fine Properties listing, the property has seven bedrooms, eight bathrooms, and three half-baths. For those keeping score at home, that's more! bathrooms! than! bedrooms!

It's the perfect kind of house for any family who likes to have giant portraits of themselves hung up on the wall. Not going to lie, those bookshelves are making me want to pretend to be Belle from Beauty and the Beast. But the rest of the room is creeping me out.

This is one of the bathrooms. It's got a fireplace, a comfy chair, a jet tub, and dark wood paneling. The kitchen has a two-story ceiling and its own balcony. Just trying to let you get a sense of what this house is like before we turn to the basement...

Because this is what the basement looks like. Is this the basement of a mansion in Maryland or Disney's Main Street? Are there hourly parades that march through? Have they not had a chance to close up that ceiling? What's going on here?

It's unclear whether or not there is an actual "movie theater" screening room type thing behind those doors, but I wouldn't put it past this place. This whole thing is uncanny in a really unsettling way.

Not to mention, there are several cars parked down there. In the listing, they're described as "real, working, parked cars," which begs the question, "How did they get in there?" and, "If I were to.... not want these cars there... how would I get them out?"

The gingerbread people being held hostage in the windows and the frosty Christmas tree plant this basement firmly in the holiday spirit. It's just such a bold choice! I'd love to know whose idea this was. I bet they're a real character.

I don't know if this tiny town was modeled on anything in particular, but according to the listing, there are 15 different storefront facades. And their choices, may I just say, are really something else. On a separate note, could you imagine having to check something in the basement in the middle of the night and then being confronted with that man on a motorcycle?

Look at him. Look into his wrinkled, melty face. He's terrifying. I don't want to ask what this guy is made of because I'm afraid that the answer is, "A real, dead human body."

If, somehow, this fake Christmas village calls to you and you'd like nothing more than living on a quaint movie set, this mansion can be yours for a mere $4.5 million. It's also got a guest house in case you want to stay as far away as possible from the embalmed man on a motorcycle in the basement while remaining on the property.

Editor's Note: The article was originally published in June 2020. It has since been updated.