Many new home seekers like a little history behind their new houses—an original stairwell here, some antique tiling there. But what if that gem in the real-estate pages turned out to be the scene of an infamous murder or suicide story? A survey that ran on Realtor.com this October showed 32 percent of home buyers wouldn’t mind buying a reportedly haunted house, if they got a discount to make those ghost encounters worth their while. This week, the site of Mary Kennedy’s tragic suicide was purchased in Connecticut. From the house where the Amityville family murders took places to the In Cold Blood family farmhouse, see more real estate with a sordid past.
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Just three weeks after the former home of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and the late Mary Kennedy went on the market, the estate, listed at almost $4 million, was sold on Oct. 25. The home has a widely known recent past: Mary hanged herself in the garage on May 16 after suffering from depression and the recent loss of custody of her children. Local real-estate agents were surprised at the quick turnaround with a property of that cost, but an explanation wasn’t hard to come by. “The Kennedy name carries cachet. Would somebody love to own a Kennedy property? Absolutely,” said Brian Levine of Sotheby’s International. “The Kennedys are the closest thing to royalty we have in the United States. I think that’ll add to the value whether someone passed away on the property or not.”
Douglas Healey, Polaris / Newscom
Price: Suggested minimum $1 million
Location: Lake Weir, Fla.
Want a piece of gangster history? In the early 1930s, the legendary Ma Barker, who had been labeled “Public Enemy No. 1” by the feds, and her gang led a spree of kidnapping, murders, and robberies across the Midwest. In 1935, two dozen FBI agents took part in what’s thought to be the longest shootout in history, spending a morning firing more than 2,000 rounds into the hideout of Ma Barker, leaving her and her son dead inside. The property, which hadn’t been on the market since the infamous shootout, boasts about its preserved state. “Frozen in time since 1935,” the brochure reads, just above pictures of period furniture and fixings. It even takes pride in the bloody past, noting that “Patched bullet holes are easily visible throughout the house.”
Scott Audette, Reuters / Landov
Price: $650,000
Location: Fall River, Mass.
Infamous axe murderess Lizzie Borden didn’t chose to stay in the house where she allegedly killed her father and stepmother (that location is now the morbid Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast, which serves a similar breakfast to the one the Bordens ate that morning and still has the couch Mr. Borden was brutally murdered on). Instead, she moved nearby to 306 French Street, where she lived out the rest of her days after being acquitted of the murders. So far, buyers familiar with Lizzie’s terrifying tale haven’t been willing to shell out for her final residence, and the price has already dropped $75,000 since it was first listed.
Price: $640,000
Location: Cross River, N.Y.
When attorney Samuel Friedlander murdered his wife and two children before killing himself, this tranquil small town was shaken by the horrifying tale. Almost year later, the house, which had been for sale at the time of the murders, was finally sold by the murdered wife’s father in July for $640,000—about half the estimated average for similar homes in the area.
Price: $329,000
Location: Bath Township, Ohio
The three-bedroom, 1950s style, 2,170-square-foot house in Bath Township, Ohio is located in a wooded area and was bought in 2005 by musician Chris Butler. At first, he couldn’t understand why the house was priced so low for the area and had been on the market for six months. But the house had a shocking past: it’s not only where Jeffrey Dahmer grew up, it’s also where he killed his first victim, in 1978. Dahmer killed and dismembered an Ohio resident named Steven M. Hicks in the house and then scattered his remains on the property. Dahmer moved to Wisconsin in 1982 and went on to murder another 16 men and boys before he was caught in 1991. The infamous murderer was killed in prison in 1994. Butler told the Akron Beacon-Journal that he “didn’t stop shaking for another 24 hours” after hearing the house’s history. But Butler decided to buy the house anyway, and says he has no regrets. “I love, love, love the place,” Butler says, and is only selling the home because his band has relocated.
Price: $1,150,000 (listed); sale price undisclosed
Location: 108 Ocean Avenue, Amityville, N.Y.
This classic Long Island Dutch colonial home comes with five bedrooms, 3 and a half bathrooms and, possibly, a few not-so-friendly ghosts. But Brian Wilson—no relation to the singer—managed to unload the house that inspired the bestselling book The Amityville Horror: A True Story, as well as several movie adaptations. The property is where Ronald DeFeo Jr. murdered his parents and four siblings in 1974. The family who then purchased the home moved out after less than a month because they thought it was haunted. The new buyers reportedly "wanted to get on the water in a big, old classic house," Newsday reported. But will they have unwanted guests?
Price: $1,999,000 (listed); $1,600,000 (sold)
Location: 10050 Cielo Drive, Los Angeles, California
This beautiful, 4,600-square-foot abode that once hosted stars of stage and screen was sold to investor John Prell in 1988 after just two weeks on the market. Overlooking scenic Benedict Canyon, the same house also was the scene of the tragic 1969 slaying of pregnant actress Sharon Tate and four guests by Manson family members. Tate's husband at the time, director Roman Polanski, was later rumored to have offered $1.5 million to bulldoze the house, the Los Angeles Times reports. The final resident of the house, before it was bulldozed and its address changed to 10066 Cielo Drive, was Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor. And here's a frightening fact: Reznor installed a recording studio inside that he dubbed "Pig"—a reference to the murderers scrawling "Pig" in blood on the door, according to Entertainment Weekly.
Price: $650,000
Location: 755 15th Street, Boulder, Colorado
A 7,092-square-foot, 1920s Tudor-style home in the quaint Boulder neighborhood of University Hill, this four-story palace was the place where John and Patsy Ramsey found the battered and bruised body of their 6-year-old daughter, JonBenet, in the basement in 1996. The home sold in 1998 to a group of investors who pledged to resell it and donate the profits to the JonBenet Ramsey Children's Foundation. It reportedly sold again in 2004 for $1.05 million. JonBenet's killer is still on the loose, and the latest owners of the home have had a hard time selling it. Featuring majestic trees, a new address (749 15th Street), stark black cabinetry, and vaulted ceilings, the home was last listed in February for $1,995,000. But a year after it failed to sell, the listing was removed.
Price: $590,000
Location: 875 S. Bundy Drive, Los Angeles, California
This 3,700-square-foot Brentwood condominium with four bedrooms and 3 ½ bathrooms has high ceilings and a place in history: It was the site where Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were stabbed to death in 1994. The property sat on the market for two years following the grisly murders, before being sold for $590,000, $200,000 less than the asking price, according to the Los Angeles Times. After an extensive remodeling—and address change to 879 S. Bundy Drive—the house sold again in 2006 for just under $1.7 million. "It was an incredible buy based on square footage and selling prices of comparable units in the area," one representative of Sotheby's International Realty told the Times.
Price: $19 million
Location: 1116 Ocean Drive, Miami, Florida
Fashion designer Gianni Versace purchased his Miami Beach home with the infamous $10,000 gold-and-marble toilet in 1992 for $2.9 million. After renovating it and adding a 6,100-square-foot addition, the Versace estate was born. After Andrew Cunanan shot and killed Versace on the steps of the home in 1997, the sprawling property was sold for $19 million to telecom giant Peter Loftin, who turned it into a private social club called Casa Casuarina, with memberships costing $50,000. In 2008 the mansion opened its doors to the public, charging $65 for a tour, USA Today reported. In March of this year, it transformed again into a five-star hotel called The Villa by Barton G., with rooms starting at $2,100 a night, according to The New York Times.
Price: $275,000
Location: Oak Avenue, Holcomb, Kansas
This spacious, 3,600-square-foot home with five bedrooms and three bathrooms sits on seven acres of land. Built in 1948 for $40,000, the two-story farmhouse was described by Truman Capote as "a place people pointed out" in his 1965 book, In Cold Blood. Yes, this home was the site where Richard Hickock and Perry Smith brutally murdered Herbert Clutter, his wife, and their two children in 1959. The 1967 film adaptation of the same name was shot in the house, which the Mader family purchased from Bob Byrd in 1990. They opened the home to visitors in the early 1990s, charging $5 a tour, before placing the home on the auction block in 2006. Unfortunately, the property, valued at between $200,000 and $300,000, only received two bids, the largest $100,000. Prices might have been held down by rumors that the ghost of Nancy Clutter, Herbert's teenage daughter, walks the halls at night
Price: Unknown
Location: 208 Meriden Avenue, Southington, Connecticut
This five-bedroom, white wood-frame house is, apparently, a former funeral parlor and a haunted one at that. It was rented by Allen and Carmen Snedeker in 1986, who moved in with their daughter and three sons when, to their surprise, they discovered its past. The family then began experiencing terrifying visions. "One of the demons was very thin, with high cheekbones, long black hair and pitch black eyes. Another had white hair and eyes, wore a pinstriped tuxedo, and his feet were constantly in motion,"
said Carmen Snedeker. The family recruited "demonologists" Ed and Lorraine Warren, famed for their involvement in the Amityville Horror case, who ruled it was indeed haunted. The house was reportedly "cleared" of ghosts after a séance in 1988,
according to the New York Daily News, and this "true story" was adapted into a 2009 movie,
The Haunting in Connecticut.
Price: Listed at $2,499,000
Location: 4500 Arthur Kill Road, Staten Island, New York
This Victorian-style, 6,000-square-foot home has plenty of history. Built in 1885 by wealthy 19th-century brick manufacturer Balthasar Kreischer as one of two twin mansions for his sons, this 14-room, turreted house is allegedly haunted by the ghost of Edward Kreischer's wife, whose husband shot himself in the head. It was converted to a restaurant in 1996, where there were rumblings of more run-ins with the supernatural. Then, in 2005, caretaker Joseph Young was paid $8,000 by the Bonanno crime family to
brutally murder a Bonanno associate on the grounds. But on the upside, the house does boast a "huge wraparound porch" and, as the
listing states, "endless possibilities."
Price: Listed at $28,995,000
Location: 100 N. Carolwood Drive, Los Angeles, California
The world fell silent on June 25, 2009, when it was announced that the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, had passed away in the 17,000-square-foot chateau he was renting in Holmby Hills. Although the verdict is still out on who exactly is responsible for Jackson's death, now anyone with a spare $29 million can live in the icon's former lap of luxury; the owners are asking for $10 million less than they had before Jackson died there,
according to TMZ.
Price: Undisclosed
Location: 9337 Columbia Boulevard, Silver Spring, Maryland
In 2002 a man came in through the window of this two-story red-brick colonial and shot to death a 9-year-old girl and her father. An exorcism was performed at the request of the next owner, Brian Betts, a 45-year-old teacher who was later found shot to death in the house. Of the house
a high school student who knew Betts said, "Cursed? No," she said. "Unlucky? Maybe. Sad? Definitely."
Price: Unknown
Location: 4308 Franklin Boulevard, Cleveland, Ohio
The Franklin Castle is not just famous for its age and its storied history—it reportedly has been the home to a German Singing Society, a German Socialist organization, a doctor's office, apartments, a party house, and bootleggers. It's also
considered the most haunted house in Ohio.
Price: $1.6 (asking); $668,000 (sold)
Location: Rancho Santa Fe, California
In 1997, 39 members of the Heaven's Gate cult took their own lives in this 9,000-square-foot two-story Mediterranean-style villa, in the largest mass suicide on American soil. The members killed themselves by overdosing on vodka and barbiturates, hoping to ascend to a spaceship. Two years later it was sold. Of the sale, Tim McGarry, a bank representative in Los Angeles, said, "We believe the valuation doesn't take into account the impairment that resulted from the fact that 39 people took their lives there," adding, "We sold it at the highest price possible, given its history." It was
later demolished.
Price: Undisclosed
Location: Nyack, Rockland County, New York
In a 1999 Jeffrey M. Stambovsky stated that when entered into a $650,000 contract on this three-story turn-of-the-century Victorian clapboard house, he was unaware of the ghosts living there who refused to leave. According to owner Helen V. Ackley, one of the ghosts sat "in midair, watching me paint the ceiling in the living room, rocking and back forth…I was on an 8-foot stepladder. I asked if he approved of what we were doing to the house, if the colors were to his liking. He smiled and he nodded his head." Another would haunt her daughter's bedroom and a third was an American Revolution-era Navy lieutenant. When the 1999 trial publicized the ghastly residents, real-estate agents were
flooded with calls from interested buyers.
Price: Undisclosed
Location: New Orleans, Louisiana
This 150-year-old house is known as one of the most haunted in New Orleans' French Quarter. One of its more famous owners was actor Nicolas Cage, who owned it until it
went up for auction.
Price: $7,495,000 (asking)
Location: 2607 Glendower, Los Feliz, California
Though it was never home to any real life cryptic events, this Frank Lloyd Wright home was cast in many a film and TV production as the residence for evil. The facade of the house was shot as the exterior of
The House on Haunted Hill and was also featured in the TV show
Buffy the Vampire Slayer as "The Mansion," home to three vampires.
Price: $2,600,000 (asking)
Location: 507 East Saint Julian Street, Savannah, Georgia
When
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil protagonist Jim Williams relocated this abode, a worker was crushed to death. Ever since, strange incidents have been reported, including a few ghosts and the
sound of footsteps.
Price: Valued at $1,396,000
Location: 5065 Encino Avenue, Encino, California
It was in this four-bedroom, five-bathroom house where in 1998, actor Phil Hartman's wife, Brynn, shot him to death in his sleep. She later took her own life.
Price: $3,595,000 (asking)
Location: 12305 5th Helena Drive, Los Angeles, California
Legendary bombshell Marilyn Monroe slipped into a coma on August 5, 1962, after overdosing on sleeping pills in this Brentwood home. Marilyn's psychiatrist, Dr. Ralph Greenson, said he discovered her naked body in bed, lying face-down. He mentioned that she
had a phone in her hand.
Price: Valued at $4,935,000
Location: 730 N. Bedford Drive, Beverly Hills, California
Shortly after divorcing her fourth husband, Lana Turner began dating Johnny Stompanato, who had connections to a darker side of Los Angeles than the bright lights the star was used to. She allegedly tried to break off their relationship, but they continued their reportedly verbally and physically abusive relationship until April 4, 1958. On that fateful evening, the couple's arguing came to a halt in Turner's six-bedroom Beverly Hills home. Cheryl Crane, her 14-year-old daughter, claiming to have feared for her mother's life, grabbed a kitchen knife, and stabbed Stompanato to death. The nearly 7,000-square-foot scene of the crime currently has an estimated value of
$4,935,000, murder weapon not included. "It's a happy house," current resident Betty Hollingsworth
told CNN. "The room is virtually the same, without the body of course."
Price: $169,900 (asking)
Location: 8435 Roanoke Drive, St. Louis, Missouri
The boy who inspired the novel (and subsequent film adaptation) The Exorcist
resided at this two brick two-story brick colonial house. Father Raymond Bishop, one of several priests who exorcised the boy, kept the house out of the diary, chronicling the exorcism activities in an attempt to conceal the boy's identity as much as possible. But neighbors are sure that the house in question is The One: "Oh yeah, that's the house," said one. Gary Stafford, who as of 2005 owned the house and was
attempting to sell it said, "It's certainly not something we'd need to disclose to the future buyer—that, some 50 years ago, a boy who stayed in the house may or may not have been possessed."
