A Dead Italian Architect Built This Wild Upside Down House by Hand in 1987 and It Has Only Had One Owner Since

There is no sign at the driveway. You cannot see it from the road. And somehow, the internet found it anyway.

A three-story upside down trapezoid house sitting on 2.44 wooded acres in Dingmans Ferry, Pennsylvania just hit the market for $625,000.

Four bedrooms, four bathrooms, a barrel-vaulted ceiling, color-coded columns, and a garage door painted to look like a theatre curtain.

Before you talk about the price or the shape, you need to know who built it. Because that changes everything.

The Architect Behind This House Was One of New York’s Most Influential Designers

His name was Giuseppe Zambonini. He went by Beppe.

Born in Italy in 1942, he moved to New York City in the 1970s and became one of the quietly influential architects of his era. The New York Times featured his loft renovation designs across four front-page Home sections.

He redesigned downtown Manhattan lofts using what he called “theatre set” walls: partial dividers that created rooms without blocking natural light.

In 1977, he founded the Open Atelier of Design, a school he described as “partially school and partially studio.” Guest lecturers included Frank Gehry, Peter Eisenman, and Richard Serra.

In 1982, he was named one of the first Emerging Voices by the New York Architecture League.

He died in 1990. He was 48.

He Wanted a Weekend Retreat. What He Built Was Something Else Entirely.

In the early 1980s, Beppe bought 2.44 acres of land perched above Nyce Lake in what later became the Traces of Lattimore community in Pike County, Pennsylvania.

He built the house himself with a group of his best students from the Open Atelier. By 1987, the structure was complete: three stories, 2,850 square feet, with every hallway, room, and deck built in trapezoid form rather than the traditional rectangle.

The shape was intentional. More angles meant more windows. More windows meant more natural light in every corner of every room.

From outside, it looks like a stack of unevenly placed structures. From inside, it is filled with light and surrounded by trees from every direction.

The barrel-vaulted ceiling is supported by eight interior columns, with only one exposed per floor: red in the study, blue in the master bedroom, yellow in the dining room.

The third floor is an open loft with his signature theatre set walls. The garage door was painted by a local artist in Chinese red, grey, and white to resemble a theatre curtain.

Nothing in this house was accidental. The home also drew cultural attention beyond architecture: it was featured in a play called “The Upside Down House” in New York and in a feature film called “A Picture of You.”

Only the Second Buyer in 40 Years

Beppe died in 1990, five years after construction began. His wife Claudia held onto the home until 2005, when the current owner purchased it from her for $396,000.

For 21 years, he kept every original color inside and out. Kept the original kitchen and bathrooms exactly as found.

His own listing description reads: “I scrupulously maintained the original colors of the house, inside and out, and kept the kitchen and bathrooms as I found them. After 21 years, it is time for a new custodian to live in this significant work of art.”

Listing agent Shaun Burger of Keller Williams Real Estate Milford puts it plainly: “The seller is very much into the arts and feels more of a custodian of the home. He is looking to pass it along to the next steward.”

This home has traded hands exactly once in four decades. The current ask of $625,000 represents a 57.8% jump from that 2005 sale. Realtor.com has the full details on this upside down trapezoid house in Pennsylvania including listing photos and property specs.

The Pocono Mountains market keeps drawing lifestyle buyers who want character over convenience. But a home with this kind of documented creative history, built by a named architect and preserved without a single alteration, is rare anywhere in the country.

Speaking of homes where the story outweighs the square footage: a Westport, Connecticut waterfront estate privately held by one family for over 65 years recently hit the market for the first time, proof that some properties carry weight no listing description can fully explain.

If you follow stories like this as they surface, there is a WhatsApp channel worth bookmarking. It covers listings like this one and luxury market moves as they happen, without waiting on the news cycle.

Why This Matters

Architecture critic Paul Goldberger publicly called Beppe “a criminally underappreciated figure in twentieth century architecture.”

His archive now lives at Parsons School of Design at The New School, preserved alongside blueprints, recorded lectures, and exhibition materials donated by Claudia after his death.

This house may be the last intact residential project he designed for himself. And according to Redfin’s April 2026 US housing market data, the median days on market nationally has now reached 49 days, up 4 days year over year as inventory gradually rises.

In that environment, a home with a named architect, a cultural footprint, and 40 years of untouched original design is a genuine outlier.

Most unique homes get stripped by the next owner. Renovated. Painted over. Made to feel like everything else around them.

This one survived two ownership events with its original soul completely intact.

Burger himself says he envisions the next buyer as “an artist who will totally appreciate this work of art” and someone who “will not want to change or renovate the home.” That is not a sales pitch. That is a filter.

The real estate market keeps showing that properties with real stories move on their own terms.

Alanis Morissette’s Bay Area estate triggered a full bidding war before closing at $9.5 million, and a San Francisco seller listed a $3 million home while asking for OpenAI or Anthropic stock instead of cash. Behind every unusual listing, there is always a bigger story.

This one has been waiting 40 years for the right person to walk through the door.

Key Takeaways

• Listed at $625,000, a 57.8% increase from the $396,000 sale price in 2005
• Built in 1985 to 1987 by Italian architect Giuseppe “Beppe” Zambonini and his design students
• 3 stories, upside down trapezoid shape, 2,850 sq ft, 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms on 2.44 wooded acres above Nyce Lake
• Every room, hallway, and deck is trapezoid shaped, designed to maximize natural light
• Only one column exposed per floor: red in the study, blue in the master bedroom, yellow in the dining room
• The home was featured in a New York play and a feature film
• The current owner preserved every original detail for 21 years without a single alteration
• This is only the second time this property has ever been listed for sale

What do you think the next owner should do with it: keep it exactly as Beppe left it, or bring it into 2026? Drop your take in the comments. Genuinely curious what people think about this one.

Wrapping Up

An upside down trapezoid on a wooded ridge above a Pennsylvania lake, built by hand by an architect who never got to grow old in it. Preserved by a stranger who treated it like something borrowed, not owned.

Now it is waiting for whoever comes next.

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Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. All property details are based on publicly available listings and reports at the time of publication.