George Freeman’s living room artwork is certainly nontraditional, but the Lake Union views are common.
WHEN I Stroll into George Freeman’s Capitol Hill home, I’m not entirely surprised to find a pulpit tricked out with turntables. I did not, nonetheless, assume the illuminated portrait of Jesus in the lavatory.


My fellow northbound I-5 drivers should know this household effectively. It really is all glass home windows and colorful lights, perched east of the highway near exit 168. On this late December afternoon, a pair of googly eyes and a trio of mannequins span the width of a next-ground window, vertical strips of mild flash magenta and blue along the angled exterior, and a reduce-level deck railing sporting activities the terms, “Science is God.” Just about every several months, a new Reddit thread surfaces with someone wondering about that “wild dwelling on the side of I5.”
Freeman shortly appears putting on a navy keep track of jacket and a black baseball cap emblazoned with a brand for the Universal Daily life Church Monastery, an interfaith ministry that ordains people online. As the founder and presiding minister, Freeman clarifies his dwelling is a de facto headquarters and collecting put. It’s where by he holds ULC meetings and functions, invites good friends more than to view the fireworks, and hosts free of charge marriage ceremonies and the like.


We chitchat for a bit, climb a slim spiral staircase to the second tale, and eventually settle at a table in an alcove angled just so toward Lake Union. Involving bursts of magenta, purple, and blue, the lit-up plexiglass floor serves as a horizontal window, not exactly for the vertigo inclined or those wearing skirts. Outdoors, cars ease down I-5 in a blur of brake lights.
Freeman, who ran a controversial over-16 dance club on Boren Avenue in the ’70s and ’80s (he is also operate for city council a few times, like past yr), first procured the property in 2009. He was wanting for a spot the place he could watch Fourth of July fireworks in excess of Lake Union. Renovations have been going on at any time due to the fact.
“I am a nightmare for a contractor,” Freeman admits, “simply because I see suggestions and have visions and say, ‘This is likely to be greater.'” For the duration of my pay a visit to, a handful of said contractors—they and Freeman speak with the kind of familiarity only time can bring—adjust lights, fiddle within an electrical panel, pack up materials.
The Monastery, as Freeman phone calls his residence, has 3 kitchens: a person functional just one clad in wood and swathed in maroon, copper, and gold a single a glowing, striated showpiece. This last a single, Freeman notes, has no oven or stove. “It seems to be like a kitchen area, but seriously it truly is a sacramental bar…. We have practically nothing towards consuming a little cold beer.”
Layers of art and furniture and color fill the home’s a few floors, with even extra place out back again and on the rooftop deck. Every space, each piece it would seem, Freeman has viewed as with painstaking care. Outdoor canopies came from a cafe downtown. That Jacuzzi tub from China. Outdoor areas are designed to improve the h2o and metropolis sights. The interior elevator—yes, there is an elevator—runs on air rather than hydraulics. Freeman even had his contractors climb the trees in his yard to install solar-driven equipment that emit sound at a substantial frequency to repel the crows that “crap on every thing.”


As unconventional and eclectic as his property may perhaps be, Freeman points out it is all for a rationale: “We designed this to use artwork as a means to proclaim that we are all children of the very same universe. When persons try to find who we are, they’ll locate out our considering, and my hope is that everyone would just take the religion in their very own palms, and believe that what you want to, but you just can not damage anybody.”
His philosophy on religion—like that “Science is God” sign—isn’t always recognized. A team from a community church at the time asked if he would just take down the sign, a ask for he declined. But Freeman doesn’t care much. “Persons seem at the signal,” he says, “and they get the concept.”

As I depart Freeman’s house with a bottle of ULC-branded pinot noir under my arm (he insists Chona Kasinger, our photographer, and I each get a single), I detect two teens in the planting strip across the avenue. They point at the property, snap pics on their telephones, and then walk north, chattering excitedly. The message, it appears to be, has been produced.