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Having recently bought a 103-year-old house with some scary stories of its own, I approached this subject with some trepidation. After doing the research, I probably won’t sleep for days.
The Ghost of Nyack
What do you do when you’ve just bought a haunted house? The people of Nyack, New York knew that the 5,000 square foot Victorian house was haunted, but Helen and George Ackley were only informed when they moved in. Strange things happened to them over the next 20 years.
One ghost would wake my wife up every morning for school by shaking her bed. When spring break came, my wife made a loud announcement before going to sleep that it was spring break, there was no school and she wanted to sleep in. Her bed did NOT shake the next morning.
While painting the living room Helen saw one of the ghost looking in approval of the color. She always got the feeling that the ghost liked the renovation they had done on the house.
When the Ackleys sold the house in 1990, Jeffrey and Patrice Stambovsky put $32,000 in escrow, then backed out of the deal when they learned the house was haunted. Helen Ackley refused to refund the deposit, and the Stambovskys sued. In what has been called the Ghostbusters ruling, the New York Appellate court ruled that the haunting should have been disclosed to potential buyers, since it is unlikely that a normal home inspection would uncover such a condition.
The Clutter House
Herb Clutter of Holcomb, Kansas designed his two story brick home with five bedrooms and three bathrooms for his growing family in 1948. In November of 1959, Herb and wife Bonnie and their two teenagers were found bound and shot to death. In addition, Herb Clutter appeared to have been tortured. Richard Hickock and Perry Smith were convicted of the crime. They had heard the Clutters were wealthy, but they only found $50 cash for all their trouble. Smith and Hickock were hanged in 1965. The crime was documented in Truman Capote’s novel In Cold Blood. Some say the ghost of Nancy Clutter, Herb Clutter’s popular teenage daughter walks the halls of the home at night. The house was up for auction in 2006 but was withdrawn when no bids were sufficient.
The Stanley Hotel
The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado is on the National Register of Historic Places. It has hosted numerous celebrities, including Stephen King, who was inspired to write The Shining after staying at the Stanley. Many believe the Stanley is haunted, but the spirits are benign. Founder F.O. Stanley’s presence in felt in the billiard room, which was one of his favorite haunts when he was alive, as well. His wife Flora loved music, and can sometimes be heard playing piano in the hotel’s music room, even though she died decades ago. The sound of children can often be heard on the fourth floor, where the servant’s quarters were in days gone by. Stephen King stayed in room 217, but hotel employees say that the most haunted room at the Stanley is room 418. (image by Rob Lee)
The Horror of Amityville
The house at 112 Ocean Avenue, Amityville, New York was the scene of six murders in 1974. Ronald “Butch” DeFeo Jr. shot and killed his parents and four siblings. See crime scene pictures here. DeFeo is serving six consecutive life sentences, while his wife Tracy has a website maintaining his innocence. The next year, George and Kathleen Lutz bought the house and moved in. They stayed only 28 days. The Lutzes reported a long list of malevolent paranormal phenomena, the basis of the book The Amityville Horror, which was made into a film in 1979. Since that time, many of the Lutz’s claims have been questioned.
The Crescent Hotel
The 78-room Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs, Arkansas was built in 1886. It was a popular destination for those wishing to bathe in the area’s healing springs. Later it was a women’s college, a junior college, a hospital for a quack who sold the cure for cancer, and once again a hotel. It boasts several different stories of resident ghosts, many featuring doctors, nurses, and cancer patients.
Cheesman Park
Cheesman Park is an 80-acre park in Denver, Colorado which began as a cemetery. It became the final resting place of many criminals and paupers. A nearby smallpox hospital contributed more of the deceased. In 1893, a part of the cemetery was made into a park, and the graves of some paupers were dug up for removal, often haphazardly so that many body parts were left behind. Around 2,000 bodies were never moved. When Cheesman Park opened, visitors and nearby residents reported ghosts roaming around. Voices can be heard when no one else is there, and specters are seen at night. (image by pbo31)
Update: For those of you who’ve asked, the Winchester Mystery House was featured in the post 10 Notable Staircases. Waverly Hills Sanatorium was the subject of its own post last year.
Comments (33)
Comment
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What, no Winchester House? Sure, it’s not actually haunted, but Sara Winchester thought it might be and continuously built it to confuse ghosts.
posted by Amy D on 10-30-2008 at 7:40 am
Well, I just decided to stop at 4AM.
posted by Miss Cellania on 10-30-2008 at 7:47 am
Fabulous post, Miss C.!!
posted by stacy on 10-30-2008 at 8:16 am
You should also look into The Lodge, in Cloudcroft, NM (click my name to go to the site). There is a legend about a woman named Rebecca who is said to still haunt the premises of the resort. I’ve stayed there myself, and it definitely feels “different”…interesting article!
posted by Bekah on 10-30-2008 at 8:18 am
I agree with Amy. The Winchester House is a fabulous place to visit and one of the creepiest places. Good ol’ Sarah felt the ghosts of all the men who were killed by her family’s invention were haunting her. The house was under construction to confuse ghosts. Secret passageways and doors to nowhere abound…
And yes the construction continued 24/7. Talk about conviction in your beliefs…
posted by Kevin on 10-30-2008 at 8:21 am
cheesman park –
how can a voice be heard when no one is around?
posted by mark on 10-30-2008 at 8:22 am
“Voices can be heard when no one is there, and specters are seen at night.”
How do you hear a voice if nobody is there?
posted by Peter on 10-30-2008 at 8:31 am
Peter.
Please think before you speak.
The post is about ghosts.
Which would answer your childish question
posted by Jösh on 10-30-2008 at 8:43 am
The Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs, AR offers late night “Ghost Tours” that are very creepy!
posted by Susan on 10-30-2008 at 8:45 am
I live next to an old army base. My wife hates when I tell her the ghost stories about the base! I try to tell her they are just confused earthbound spirits and we need Jennifer Love Hewitt to get them to the light!
posted by Marty on 10-30-2008 at 8:53 am
Josh, I think you should listen to your own advice. I think the point Peter was trying to make was that if nobody is there, then there’s also no one to hear the voice. The statement should be: “Voices can be heard when no one else is around…”
posted by MW on 10-30-2008 at 9:07 am
OK, I get it. I changed it to “when no one else is there”.
posted by Miss Cellania on 10-30-2008 at 9:32 am
For The Stanley Hotel:
Room 418’s numbers add up to 13…
Of course then 1+3=4…not as spooky.
posted by Kevin on 10-30-2008 at 9:33 am
I used to live a block from Cheeseman Park and my husband and I stayed for an anniversary at the Stanley. Both are beautiful, but, sadly, I have no ghost encounters from either.
posted by Jen on 10-30-2008 at 9:34 am
I’ve done the midnight tour of the Winchester House… I highly recommend it to anyone who can get the chance to do it. Midnight tours are done on Halloween and Friday the 13ths. That house is definetly creepier at night.
As an aside… If a ghost claps in the woods, and no one is there to hear it… does it make a sound?
or
What it the sound of one ghost hand clapping?
posted by Jason! on 10-30-2008 at 9:38 am
Amityville has been dismissed many times over as a fraud…
posted by Devin on 10-30-2008 at 10:08 am
They made a park out of a cemetary????? Isn’t that a bit disrespectful? (p.s. didn’t anyone in CO see Poltergeist? lol)
Great Post MissC
posted by JaneM on 10-30-2008 at 10:36 am
We used to live very close to The Amityville Horror for years. Long Island has some fabulous sites, including the site where the Headless Horseman was supposed to have been buried, Lake Ronkonkoma, tons more.
posted by ovaryacting on 10-30-2008 at 10:40 am
Buried the Headless Horseman?! But he just rode by outside my house.
Buried a fictional character in a fictitious grave.
And the Amity Horror was written by 2 reporters from New York; Big time debunked!
posted by Owen on 10-30-2008 at 10:51 am
Once you’ve been in real estate for awhile you learn that people find all kinds of reasons for backing out of transactions. The “frightening” thing is that the NY Appellate court would rule on something as diaphanous as haunting.
posted by DUKE on 10-30-2008 at 10:53 am
Once you’ve been in real estate awhile you learn that people find a lot of reasons for backing out of real estate transactions. The “frightening thing is that the NY APPELLATE court would rule on something as diaphanous as haunting.
posted by DUKE on 10-30-2008 at 10:57 am
That same law is also on the books in New Jersey, where I once worked for a realtor. We had a house locally where murders had been committed, and one of our agents sold it. It was thought to be haunted, and the listing agent had to disclose that fact by law. Luckily, Nancy’s buyers didn’t believe in ghosts.
I learned another interesting fact at that time: in the North, a supposed ghost makes your property value absolutely PLUMMET, but in the South, if your house has a ghost, your property value rises slightly. Southerners love ghosts.
posted by Southern Buddhist on 10-30-2008 at 11:05 am
Awesome post, Miss C! I kinda hoped a fellow Kentuckian would have included Waverly Hills in Louisville, though. ;-)
posted by Roger on 10-30-2008 at 11:13 am
Oh Roger, I did an entire post about Waverly Hills last year!
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/9128
posted by Miss Cellania on 10-30-2008 at 11:21 am
The Amityville House stories may be fraudulent, but the Amityville Toaster is very much real. ;-) http://www.illwillpress.com/toast.html
posted by nutmeag on 10-30-2008 at 12:49 pm
Wow! Cool Waverly article – can’t believe I missed that last year!
posted by Roger on 10-30-2008 at 3:01 pm
I have a friend who is going to a Halloween party at the house in Bel-Nor, MO where the exorcism that inspired the novel/film “The Exorcist” supposedly occurred. Apparently the bedroom where the whole thing happened is still boarded shut to make sure no one goes inside.
Take all that with a grain of salt, though, as the actual location of the house is up for debate.
posted by SpaceMonkeyX on 10-30-2008 at 3:37 pm
That’s an old photo of the Amityville house. It no longer has the two side windows on the uppermost floor.
posted by mike on 10-30-2008 at 5:48 pm
I was born and raised in Amityville and used to have a babysitting job one house over from the “horror house”. It’s a beautiful home actually, and yes has been renovated since the 70’s. You can still tell it’s the same house but it’s white now with different windows. I always thought the oddest thing about it was that it’s sideways… the “front door” actually faces the side yard. You can sort of tell from the photo posted above. I feel bad for the people who live there now, especially when the awful movie remake came out a few years ago. Folks driving by to ogle at your house becomes extremely annoying. Still, the murders were real and the story is tragic.
Oddly enough my ReCAPTCHA is “Slain where”. Happy Halloween!
posted by Jill on 10-31-2008 at 8:19 am
Great post… makes me want to visit some the locations, even though I don’t believe in ghosts or hauntings.
posted by Sarah on 1-17-2009 at 8:24 pm
look peeps if u watch the british FREAKS that think they can find ghosts there stupid they even got charged with fraud the medium is fake they allways find a john or elizabeth in EVERY HOUSE!!!!! believe me they r very fake this is whitey on the top paranormal investigation fakes to come again
posted by whitey on 4-2-2009 at 1:17 pm
Great post…
The comments use to be fun to read…
Now its just people bitchin’ about the way something was phrase…
Love your post Miss Cellania :)
ReCaptcha: manors arc
Could that be where the ghost are hiding?
posted by Chrystani on 10-30-2009 at 11:23 am
The comments are still fun to read. No Sloss furneace still, I see. Oh, well.
posted by Sara in AL on 10-30-2009 at 5:29 pm