Scary homes for sale
While not everyone believes in ghosts, there are still houses that are generally considered to be haunted (that’s already been covered here on CNBC in America’s Most Haunted Homes).
Plenty of homes just look scary, as if they’re starring in a ghost story or a horror movie. (One of the following homes actually has appeared in a scary movie, among many other film and TV appearances.)
The following contains houses that are not (necessarily) haunted, but they look as if they could be, as images from Zillow.com show. One had a creepy and kooky famous resident, another is said to have inspired a famous haunted house, one is frozen in time, and others have styles that lend themselves to scary tales. Scroll down to see these scary-looking homes.
Medieval House
Location: West Monroe, Louisiana
Price: $599,000
Bedrooms: 4
Bathrooms: 4
Square Footage: 4,630
This vampy house was only built last year, but it already looks haunted…by the ghost of Hot Topic.
The custom-designed home has distinct Medieval-inspired décor with velvet custom furniture that can be included with the sale. Starting with the main entryway and windows, Gothic pointed arch shapes repeat throughout the home, including incarnations as dining room chair backs. Even the kitchen reaches for an Old World look, with dark wood cabinets embellished with 3D lions prancing straight off of a family crest. The backs of the stools at ye olden breakfast bar are corseted.
According to the Zillow blog post about the house, the owner intended to move from this property into a castle.
Ossining Castle
Location: Ossining, New York
Price: $5,000,000
Bedrooms: 4
Bathrooms: 3.5
Square Footage: n/a
Built in 1927, this stone-walled castle home has a huge dining hall, wood paneling with creepy carvings of human figures and faces (reminiscent of The Haunted Mansion), a rustic guesthouse, and a lookout perch atop the whole structure.
One mysterious detail about this property can send chills down the spine: the real estate listing states in all caps: SOLD AS IS.
The Harry Parker Mansion
Location: Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania
Price: $1,750,000
Bedrooms: n/a
Bathrooms: n/a
Square Footage: approx. 4,500
Speaking of the film "The Haunted Mansion," the website for the 1874 Harry Parker Mansion claims it was the inspiration for the Disneyworld ride The Haunted Mansion. It was built as a wedding gift from Harry’s father Asa Parker, the railroad baron and founder of Lehigh University, and it’s now a bed and breakfast and events space.
Instead of 999 ghosts, the Victorian mansion (which was last on the market in 2006), has stained glass windows by Tiffany, marble fireplaces, and is furnished with tasteful antiques. However, they do host regular murder mystery weekends, which explains why their website is MurderMansion.com.
Addams Family House
Location: Westfield, New Jersey
Price: $799,900
Bedrooms: 6
Bathrooms: 2.5
Square Footage: n/a
This historic property, built in 1907, is the former home of Charles Addams, creator of the Addams Family, who lived there until 1947. What began in this house as a macabre single-panel cartoon for the New Yorker became a television series, then a pair of movies, and is now a hit Broadway play. The house now looks bright and cheery, but its most famous occupant had dark touches in his own life. A Zillow blog post about the house notes that Addams retouched photos of corpses for True Detective magazine, he married wife no. 3 in a pet cemetery, and his second wife plotted to kill him.
Ennis House
Location: Los Angeles, California
Price: $4,500,000
Bedrooms: 4
Bathrooms: 4.5
Square Footage: 6,000+
This dramatic Mayan-inspired hilltop residence embodying architectural and celluloid history recently sold at a dramatic discount from its 2009 asking price of $15 million. Classic film buffs will recognize it as the home where Vincent Price’s character offered $10,000 to anyone who could last the night there in the 1959 thriller, the original "House on Haunted Hill."
Frank Lloyd Wright designed Ennis House in 1924, and it features Wright hallmarks such as prairie-style leaded mitered glass. Another distinguishing factor is its glass mosaic fireplace — one of only four of its kind, and the best-preserved example. The temple-like home is situated in a gated community in Los Feliz. It features cavernous ceilings with exposed beams, marble floors, a guesthouse, a pool framed by a window-lined loggia, and unhindered views of the ocean, canyon and city lights.
It also appeared in other dark productions, serving as the home to Angel the vampire in seasons 2 and 3 of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," the TV series "Twin Peaks" and too many others to list. Visit the home’s website for more of its history.
Comfort Island
Location: Thousand Islands, New York
Price: $1,495,000
Bedrooms: 8
Bathrooms: n/a
Square Footage: 4,680
This house on Comfort Island (the “Millionaire’s Row” of the Thousand Islands Region of Alexandria Bay, N.Y.) has stayed in the original family (the heirs of industrialist Alson E. Clark) since it was built in 1883, and almost everything about the place — save for the exterior paint job and a new roof — is still the original.
Holy Miss Havisham’s sitting room! From the Chinoiserie murals on the walls to the antique furnishings to the wood cook stove in the kitchen, this home is stuck in time. Taking a glance through the photos on the property’s website, it’s clear that the next owner can either do the time warp (again) or will have some serious renovations in store.
Animal House
Location: New Canaan, Connecticut
Price: $13,850,000
Bedrooms: 5
Bathrooms: 9
Square Footage: 13,050
The owner of this mansion on seven acres has transformed it into his own personal Cabela’s outdoor superstore, after personally hunting and shooting the more than 100 of the taxidermy animals present on the property and arranging them into life-sized museum displays with painted nature scene backgrounds.
The menagerie includes a zebra bust, a rhino head, a polar bear and an alligator posed as if attacking a baboon. They’re currently all located in an activities building, which Curbed compared to a “souped-up man cave” (pictured here, lower right). Many more of the ex-animals can be seen in this Wall Street Journal slideshow. On the off-chance that the buyers of this estate don’t want to share it with 100 beautiful but lifeless stuffed creatures, the WSJ article says the owners are willing to customize the space at no extra cost.
Chateau Rochamor
Location: Stamford, Connecticut
Price: $1,099,000
Bedrooms: 5
Bathrooms: 6
Square Footage: 4,800
This French chateau-style castle residence on three acres was custom built in 1906. The name Rochamore means “love rock” and the great room, which is three stories tall, has a “Romeo and Juliet balcony.” That’s not to say there are any lovelorn ghosts here, but it would make a romantically named place for some to haunt.
The house features fieldstone, transverse gables, stone buttresses, three stone chimneys and a four-story stone and half-timber tower. There’s a tiled patio, wraparound terrace, and solarium, in-ground pool (call it a rectangular moat if need be) and an attached three-“carriage” garage.
While not everyone believes in ghosts, there are still houses that are generally considered to be haunted (that’s already been covered here on CNBC in America’s Most Haunted Homes).
Plenty of homes just look scary, as if they’re starring in a ghost story or a horror movie. (One of the following homes actually has appeared in a scary movie, among many other film and TV appearances.)
The following contains houses that are not (necessarily) haunted, but they look as if they could be, as images from Zillow.com show. One had a creepy and kooky famous resident, another is said to have inspired a famous haunted house, one is frozen in time, and others have styles that lend themselves to scary tales. Scroll down to see these scary-looking homes.
Slideshow: Scary homes for sale
Medieval HouseLocation: West Monroe, Louisiana
Price: $599,000
Bedrooms: 4
Bathrooms: 4
Square Footage: 4,630
This vampy house was only built last year, but it already looks haunted…by the ghost of Hot Topic.
The custom-designed home has distinct Medieval-inspired décor with velvet custom furniture that can be included with the sale. Starting with the main entryway and windows, Gothic pointed arch shapes repeat throughout the home, including incarnations as dining room chair backs. Even the kitchen reaches for an Old World look, with dark wood cabinets embellished with 3D lions prancing straight off of a family crest. The backs of the stools at ye olden breakfast bar are corseted.
According to the Zillow blog post about the house, the owner intended to move from this property into a castle.
Ossining CastleLocation: Ossining, New York
Price: $5,000,000
Bedrooms: 4
Bathrooms: 3.5
Square Footage: n/a
Built in 1927, this stone-walled castle home has a huge dining hall, wood paneling with creepy carvings of human figures and faces (reminiscent of The Haunted Mansion), a rustic guesthouse, and a lookout perch atop the whole structure.
One mysterious detail about this property can send chills down the spine: the real estate listing states in all caps: SOLD AS IS.
The Harry Parker MansionLocation: Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania
Price: $1,750,000
Bedrooms: n/a
Bathrooms: n/a
Square Footage: approx. 4,500
Speaking of the film "The Haunted Mansion," the website for the 1874 Harry Parker Mansion claims it was the inspiration for the Disneyworld ride The Haunted Mansion. It was built as a wedding gift from Harry’s father Asa Parker, the railroad baron and founder of Lehigh University, and it’s now a bed and breakfast and events space.
Instead of 999 ghosts, the Victorian mansion (which was last on the market in 2006), has stained glass windows by Tiffany, marble fireplaces, and is furnished with tasteful antiques. However, they do host regular murder mystery weekends, which explains why their website is MurderMansion.com.
Addams Family HouseLocation: Westfield, New Jersey
Price: $799,900
Bedrooms: 6
Bathrooms: 2.5
Square Footage: n/a
This historic property, built in 1907, is the former home of Charles Addams, creator of the Addams Family, who lived there until 1947. What began in this house as a macabre single-panel cartoon for the New Yorker became a television series, then a pair of movies, and is now a hit Broadway play. The house now looks bright and cheery, but its most famous occupant had dark touches in his own life. A Zillow blog post about the house notes that Addams retouched photos of corpses for True Detective magazine, he married wife no. 3 in a pet cemetery, and his second wife plotted to kill him.
Ennis HouseLocation: Los Angeles, California
Price: $4,500,000
Bedrooms: 4
Bathrooms: 4.5
Square Footage: 6,000+
This dramatic Mayan-inspired hilltop residence embodying architectural and celluloid history recently sold at a dramatic discount from its 2009 asking price of $15 million. Classic film buffs will recognize it as the home where Vincent Price’s character offered $10,000 to anyone who could last the night there in the 1959 thriller, the original "House on Haunted Hill."
Frank Lloyd Wright designed Ennis House in 1924, and it features Wright hallmarks such as prairie-style leaded mitered glass. Another distinguishing factor is its glass mosaic fireplace — one of only four of its kind, and the best-preserved example. The temple-like home is situated in a gated community in Los Feliz. It features cavernous ceilings with exposed beams, marble floors, a guesthouse, a pool framed by a window-lined loggia, and unhindered views of the ocean, canyon and city lights.
It also appeared in other dark productions, serving as the home to Angel the vampire in seasons 2 and 3 of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," the TV series "Twin Peaks" and too many others to list. Visit the home’s website for more of its history.
Comfort IslandLocation: Thousand Islands, New York
Price: $1,495,000
Bedrooms: 8
Bathrooms: n/a
Square Footage: 4,680
This house on Comfort Island (the “Millionaire’s Row” of the Thousand Islands Region of Alexandria Bay, N.Y.) has stayed in the original family (the heirs of industrialist Alson E. Clark) since it was built in 1883, and almost everything about the place — save for the exterior paint job and a new roof — is still the original.
Holy Miss Havisham’s sitting room! From the Chinoiserie murals on the walls to the antique furnishings to the wood cook stove in the kitchen, this home is stuck in time. Taking a glance through the photos on the property’s website, it’s clear that the next owner can either do the time warp (again) or will have some serious renovations in store.
Animal HouseLocation: New Canaan, Connecticut
Price: $13,850,000
Bedrooms: 5
Bathrooms: 9
Square Footage: 13,050
The owner of this mansion on seven acres has transformed it into his own personal Cabela’s outdoor superstore, after personally hunting and shooting the more than 100 of the taxidermy animals present on the property and arranging them into life-sized museum displays with painted nature scene backgrounds.
The menagerie includes a zebra bust, a rhino head, a polar bear and an alligator posed as if attacking a baboon. They’re currently all located in an activities building, which Curbed compared to a “souped-up man cave” (pictured here, lower right). Many more of the ex-animals can be seen in this Wall Street Journal slideshow. On the off-chance that the buyers of this estate don’t want to share it with 100 beautiful but lifeless stuffed creatures, the WSJ article says the owners are willing to customize the space at no extra cost.
Chateau RochamorLocation: Stamford, Connecticut
Price: $1,099,000
Bedrooms: 5
Bathrooms: 6
Square Footage: 4,800
This French chateau-style castle residence on three acres was custom built in 1906. The name Rochamore means “love rock” and the great room, which is three stories tall, has a “Romeo and Juliet balcony.” That’s not to say there are any lovelorn ghosts here, but it would make a romantically named place for some to haunt.
The house features fieldstone, transverse gables, stone buttresses, three stone chimneys and a four-story stone and half-timber tower. There’s a tiled patio, wraparound terrace, and solarium, in-ground pool (call it a rectangular moat if need be) and an attached three-“carriage” garage.
25 comments