The last time I was at Seattle rapper Carter Costello’s house was under the cloak of night. I had been invited to an art and music show — featuring Seattle photographer and artist Baby Claypool, a duo of fire dancers, rapper Nobi and Costello — by local photographer James Gerde. Once I set foot on Costello’s property, I followed a cement ramp, passing a fence spray painted with yellow flowers. A line of yellow happy face balloons taped to the handrail greeted me as I went.

“The 12-Year Void,” a celebration of Baby’s 12-year work anniversary, was the inaugural event at Costello’s house, a 3,250-square-foot, three-bedroom, two-story abode nestled into the woods on a quarter-acre acre lot directly across from Carkeek Park in North Seattle. He bought this house to turn it into a community hub — a music venue, event space and recording studio. The middle of Broadview’s quiet and ritzy residential neighborhood is a seemingly odd place to broadcast loud music and display fence graffiti, but for Costello, that’s the point.

“I never liked money or the idea of it,” he says. “I come from drug addiction and being pretty cool in pretty grimy settings.”

His house is filled with a vast array of eccentric and eclectic decor, like a golden-retriever-sized stuffed white tiger casually lounging atop a brightly-colored Keith Haring rug in the middle of his living room. He’s in the process of building out the recording studio in his basement and the house feels like a giant interactive museum for adults. In the greenhouse, he shows me his shruti box, a harmonium-like instrument from India. He uses it to meditate after the passing of his friend, Jayden, more than a year ago.

The inaugural night at Costello’s house felt like witnessing a phoenix being born — in part, no doubt, because of the fire dancers. But also because an undercurrent of life and light versus death and darkness ran through the night, from Costello’s dedication of his song “The Gates” to Jayden and Costello’s openness about his own drug addiction and recovery, to Baby’s photographs of bloody clowns, eerie alleys and naked bodies hung on the garage walls.

The way Costello acquired this space sounds like the next best Netflix original about rising from the ashes: In May 2019, when he was just 20 years old, he was hit by a car being driven by a Rideshare company driver while he was at work as a dishwasher at Canlis. He was outside, showing a new employee where to find the nonslip kitchen mats, when a car turned onto the sidewalk and sped up to anywhere from 45 to 60 miles per hour, according to his estimation.

The other employee was hit on his left side, rolled over the car and landed next to the restaurant. Costello was hit on his right side. He flew 35 feet, hit a tree, rolled down a broken branch and all the way down the hill, and landed under the Aurora Avenue underpass. He wasn’t found until a construction worker signaled to Canlis owner Brian Canlis. The woman taking the rideshare ride, Pamela Richards, died of her injuries. The seat belt broke her neck.

Costello had 14 broken bones (four in his skull, his coracoid process, his clavicle and multiple ribs). It took him two years to heal his shoulder. He suffered brain damage and is now diagnosed with mild neurocognitive disorder, which affects his ability to read and focus on conversation. He’s lost about half of the hearing in his right ear and also suffers from tinnitus.

“I hear [the ringing in my ear] all the time, but if I’m in a recording booth, it’s a lot more noticeable,” he says. “I’ll record in an open room with some room noise because that’s easier.”

Two weeks after his accident, Costello was supposed to have been in Los Angeles playing a show with other artists in recovery including Macklemore and Kesha. (Costello’s meth addiction started at age 12. He got sober at age 15.) Instead — incredibly — he played the Northwest Folklife Festival at Seattle Center. He was brought to the stage in a wheelchair and performed with his arm in a sling. Call it the willpower of a 20-year-old kid. He spent the summer in Seattle, doing The Residency, a youth hip-hop boot camp run through the Museum of Pop Culture, playing Folklife and litigating with the rideshare company.

Two years later, the company settled, and Costello finally got his payout: $3.5 million. After taxes and legal fees, he took home about $2.1 million. And now he’s using that money to build his house into a community space, event venue and recording studio. He affectionately calls it Homegrown in the Basement (you can find it that way on Google Maps). It’s partially an ode to the basement room at Crybaby Studios, where he would make music with other kids from The Residency, partially an ode to Tupac’s poetry collection, “The Rose That Grew from Concrete,” and partially an ode to his experience with addiction.

“It’s like coming from the dirt. Coming from the gutters. The bottom of the barrel kind of people that I am,” he says. “It’s coming from the trenches in life and blossoming like a flower. That’s why my logo is a flower coming out of a flowerpot.”

Costello’s ultimate goal is to finish building out the space and to hire someone to manage it while he travels. He wants to gear the venue toward people who have less than he does, and even though he’s only laying the groundwork for the studio, he’s already talked with The Residency about doing recording sessions and shows. Right now, he’s hosting parties and events for his friends with the intent to scale.

“I want to give people this community space to have a great fucking time, experience art in Seattle and regrow a community,” he says.

Back at “The 12-Year Void,” the cement ramp I followed to Costello’s backyard spit me out in what I can only describe as an attached rotunda — an open, circular room decked out with neon lights and fully outfitted with mirrors. The previous owner had the mirrors in the bedroom, but it was a little much for Costello. He and his friends moved them outside, framing them with hot dog-style cut pool noodles. A giant, purple, spray-painted panel of wall just before the circle of mirrors appropriately welcomed house guests “2 the void.”

Just outside the rotunda, Costello’s backyard opened up to a U-shaped, two-story deck space. To my right, Costello was already on stage (the deck), framed in a spotlight against a fence spray painted with the words “12 year void.” To my left, the garage was open, filled with Baby’s photos. People drenched in dark makeup and low lighting peered out at me from the frames, beckoning me closer.

It was dusk when I arrived, but as full darkness fell and Costello ended his set, two fire dancers wearing matching flame-patterned leotards and black boots unassumingly took the stage. Then they brought out giant pieces of metal I can only describe as flaming wings for a dance to Doja Cat’s “Woman.” They stepped off the stage and I came down to the floor with them, hoping to feel the warmth from the fire in my face.

By the time Nobi took the stage, I felt like I was in a different world, surrounded by art I’d never seen and feelings I’d never felt. By the time Nobi got off the stage, though, the cops had been called twice and Baby was ushering people out. I reluctantly got my coat from where I stashed it behind the merch table.

On my way out, I took a quick photo of one of the happy face balloons to remind me of this feeling — full, buoyant and beautifully bewildered. The photo came out blurry but that somehow felt very poignant — like what I was supposed to take from this evening is the twisted comfort that even if we’re smiling on the outside, we’re all a little blurry on the inside, waiting to be reborn.

To keep up with Costello, his music and Homegrown in the Basement, follow him on IG: @cartercostello.