Realtor Paints Apartment Building Rainbow Colors after Daughters' Request

"A house-turned-apartment complex is bringing smiles to lots of people on a Nebraska block thanks to its vibrant, rainbow paint job and the owner's young daughters who chose the hues," reported USA Today.

Though the structure displays the colors of the LGBTQ+ flag, the color palette was chosen by the apartment building owner, Ryan Basye, at the request of his three daughters: 5-year-old Cecilia, 7-year-old Louise, and 9-year-old Josephine.

"To them it's not the symbol it is to other people," owner Basye told the Omaha World-Herald. "They would want to play Barbies or have Care Bears over."

He added: "It's been fun. My girls think it's the coolest thing ever... This place is right by an elementary school so we get lots of kids walking by with smiles on their faces."

He added that the response "has been about 99% positive."

The color choice came about after Basye had painted his office building's exterior bright red. He then asked his daughters what the colors should be for his next job. They suggested he go with a rainbow design.

"It brought me back to a conversation I had with [a property owner] on that block that used some derogatory words and that didn't sit well," he recounted to USA Today.

"The property owner's comments were made in 2022 and included a slur and stereotypes often used for gay men," USA Today relayed. "The individual also told Basye his property didn't look very good compared to their own property on the street."

Added the newspaper account: "He hasn't heard anything about the house from the property owner who made the jarring comments, but people in the neighborhood love the house, he said."

One tenant told the World-Herald the paint job
"freaking amazing and beautiful."

"Comments were overwhelmingly positive on a post about the house on the Dundee Memorial Park Neighborhood Association Facebook page, ranging from calling it fantastic to saying it reinforces that the Dundee neighborhood is the best in Omaha," reported the World-Herald.

"Jay Axelrod of Everything Axelrod painted the house, which used to be light green. It now includes perfect strips of black, purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, red, pink and white. Even the gutters match the color scheme."

"It took a lot of extra time and effort and energy to get it to come out that good. And money," Basye said. "It probably doubled the cost."

Basye added that the coolest thing about the rainbow house is that it's instantly identifiable for guests of the tenants who live there, and it's just one more thing he's done to improve the community.

"I think it's unique," he said ," and it makes me laugh, and it makes me smile."