Outside, this home is like any other in Newport, Oregon. Inside, it’s a Renaissance-era castle with hand-carved doors, stained-glass windows from old English churches. (It might seem more like a crazy ex-royal lives here…) Close, it is owned by the Right and Honorable Dowager Countess of Shannon, Almine Barton. She’s also a seer, spiritual master and Mystic-Visionary, according to her website… OK.

The home has undergone major additions since Barton moved in and her reasoning is that she didn’t want her tax bill to go up, which is nutty. But she claims she left the exterior unchanged and never “let the tax man through the door”. Barton bought the property in 1979 for very little and now she has put it on the market for $399,000, which seems a bargain, if it comes furnished and at the same time, she’s not likely to get that amount.

“It was an ordinary suburban house. The owner built it with just basic materials in a very, very sturdy way. But when I went in and saw the small little space, it just didn’t feel right to me.

One of the first things you might notice is that the house looks reasonably dark inside. Normally American houses aim for light. But there’s a reason for that. We have 18th-century stained glass in many of the windows, and just like in a cathedral, the darker interior makes these windows light up like gems throughout the day. As the light changes, the windows change.

It’s like living inside a Rembrandt painting.”

Before Barton had a stroke two years ago, she traveled around the world — sometimes twice in a year but now she’s looking to downsize to a smaller home that’s a little more manageable. But it’s hard to say goodbye to the house it took her 40 years to carefully design, curate and craft. Take a look. It goes on for days. Her buyers pool is small if you use the whole U.S. but in the small town of Newport, Oregon, it must be a handful, if that.

(T/Y, Tad; via Curbed)