A couple in Santa Clara, California is facing heat from neighbors for painting their renovated Victorian-style home like the one showed in the Pixar animated movie "Up."
Hosam Haggog and Fatima Rahman spent two years giving the home a facelift and decided to paint it in the signature yellow, green, orange and pink pastels to surprise their two young children, who are fans of the movie. But neighbors of the historic neighborhood disapprove of the color scheme saying that it's "atrocious" and looks like a "clown."
"They love the movie "Up" and we just thought we'd give them something fun to be proud of and actually all the kids in the neighborhood really love the colors," Haggog told NBC Bay Area news.
"We're not trying to create controversy. We're trying to build a home for our daughters and our family. And that's what our intention was."
The neighbors are angry because they believe the bright colors of the residence disrupt the neighborhood's essence. The residence sits on the oldest street in the city, which has a stretch of about 100-year-old Victorian homes. The loud colors of the home don't fit in.
"I don't think it fits in... It really, in my opinion, is atrocious that this Victorian is a gracious old lady and it's been painted up to look like a clown," Lou Faria, a neighbor, who is also a member of the Old Quad Residents Association, told KNTV.
"If the family wanted a modern home, they shouldn't have bought one in this neighborhood. They say their kids want a fun home - so they're going to destroy a historical home?" another angry neighbor told Yahoo Shine.
But the paint is not just what's infuriated the people. When the couple bought the home and decided to renovate the house, they went straight to the planning department instead of going to the city's Historical & Landmarks Commission. It's a rule in the neighborhood that all homeowners need to seek renovation permits from the commission in a meeting where neighbors living within 300 feet of the house are given a chance to voice their opinion.
Now the Santa Clara city council will inspect the home to check if the actual historic features of the home are preserved, which according to the couple, indeed is.
"We had to rebuild the porch, but if you compare before and after photos of the house, the new porch looks the same, except it's not going to collapse,"
"Even though there have been a couple of people who don't like the house's look, we try to focus on the positive reaction for our kids," Haggog told ABC News.
"The majority of the people in our neighborhood really love the house," Rahman added.
"People will drive by yelling 'good job! When I drove by the house last week with my daughter, she was so excited. She asked, 'Can the house fly now?' It just made the whole process totally worth it."
While this house probably won't fly, two engineers did create a world record in 2011 after they built a small "light-weight" house and tied it up to giant 8-foot balloons that were each filled with an entire tank of helium gas.
And guess what? The home flew! Just like in the movie. Check out a video of the real-life flying home here.
