Mushroom House Tour goes viral

It began as an idea for a day trip for Louise Psarras and her friends.

The Carthage resident found the Mushroom House of Perinton online through a search of unusual homes. A fan of unique architecture, she was immediately drawn to the pod-like home.

When she visited the website at www.MushroomHouse.com, she saw that tours are being offered the weekend of May 14 and 15 for an entry price of $20 and $10 for students, with a portion going to charity. So she created a Facebook event page asking her friends to join her. Except she hit the public button.

On Monday, two weeks after she created the Facebook page, she noticed unusual activity. It was picked up in Rochester and shared over 200 times. By Tuesday, more than 6,400 people noted they are interested with over 800 people saying they will go on the tour.

"It was crazy," said Psarras, 47, who is originally from Belgium and now lives outside Fort Drum, Jefferson County.

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At that point, she called Realtor Rich Testa of Hunt Real Estate to notify him of the interest. He is working with the new buyers of the Mushroom House to coordinate the tour.

"They really wanted to share their house with the community," Testa said.

Testa owns the domain www.MushroomHouse.com. He had represented buyers from Toronto, with new home owner Linda Xing eager to show the house at 142 Park Road to her new neighbors.

Testa said he will hire security for this event and visitors will be let into the home on a first come first serve basis in groups of 10 for 10 minutes. He urged visitors to park at the Fish Hatchery in Powder Mills Park. Information about tickets is available at www.MushroomHouse.com.

"I'm glad there's such interest in this," Testa said.

MCHAO@DemocratandChronicle.com