10.
Lynnewood Hall- Pennsylvania One of America's greatest surviving Gilded
Age houses is a stunning neo-classical revival masterpiece.
The elegant property was once one of Pennsylvania's finest pieces of real estate.
But it fell into disrepair because of a complicated and tragic history, yet it still holds its
fair share of secrets.
The mysteries of this fascinating abandoned estate will shake you to your core, from beautiful
interiors and underground passageways to its sad Titanic link.
US businessman, prolific art collector, and Titanic investor Peter Arrell Browne Widener
had this turn-of-the-century home in Philadelphia, known as Lynnewood Hall, built between 1897
and 1900.
Construction crews built the house on a massive 480-acre estate in Elkins Park, Montgomery
County, Pennsylvania.
After his wife died, Widener enlisted the help of renowned American architect Horace
Trumbauer to create a new home for him and his children.
Lynnewood Hall, a 70,000-square-foot limestone structure in the shape of a T.
Analysts estimate it cost $8,000,000 to build.
It had 110 rooms, including 55 bedrooms and 20 baths, as well as an art gallery and a
ballroom that can hold 1,000 people.
Widener was a shareholder in the RMS Titanic, the world's most famous passenger liner.
When the Titanic sank to the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean, both George and Harry
died.
The historic passenger liner collided with an iceberg, causing massive damage.
There were approximately 2,224 persons on board.
More than half of the passengers died, making the Titanic one of the worst maritime disasters
in history.
As a result, neither George nor his son Harry lived to see Lynnewood Hall passed down to
them.
Widener's only surviving child, Joseph, assumed control of the costly estate and inherited
a wealth believed to be worth over $60,000,000.
Between 1915 and 1940, he took over the estate's outstanding art collection and opened the
home's private gallery to the public, sharing his father's passion for art.
As a result, the property earned the moniker "the house that art."
When Joseph died in 1943, neither of his children wanted to take on the monumental task of running
Lynnewood Hall.
The family abandoned the old house, and it swiftly fell into decay.
But in 1948, a developer bought the estate and its acreage for the low price of $130,000.
In 1952, the Faith Theological Seminary bought the estate.
The group paid $192,000, but it continued to deteriorate further after they sold off
many of Lynnewood's significant assets, including over 350 acres of land.
The property now sits on merely 33 acres.
This is one costly abandoned mansion that has gone from amazing luxury to a horrible
state.
9.
Wyckoff Villa- New York Over eight decades have passed since anyone
has lived in this dilapidated castle across the border from Canada.
The crumbling property, which is exposed to unforgiving weather, would cost millions to
restore to its former beauty.
While spirits don’t haunt the abandoned estate, it is unmistakably a ghost of its
former self.
And the story behind it is tragic.
According to news sources, businessman William O. Wyckoff had the once-grand estate built
on the small island in the 1890s as a vacation home.
He made his money selling the newly invented typewriter to E. Remington and Sons, company.
With his fortune, he chose to construct a holiday home on the banks of the St. Lawrence
River.
On his first night at the house, the owner reportedly died of a heart attack.
His wife died a month before the house was ready.
Although the family probably lost most of their fortune during the Great Depression,
Wyckoff passed the estate down to one of his sons.
Nobody has lived in the house since 1927.
The current owners live in a cottage nearby and sold the villa several years ago.
It has been on and off the market, waiting for a buyer willing to throw the mansion a
life preserver, it happened first in 2012 and then again in 2015, all for the same amount.
This does not include the work that the future owner will have to complete.
8.
Chaonei No.81- China It was 1949, and the Communists had just won
the civil war over the Nationalists.
According to legend, a high-ranking official in Beijing abandoned his wife during the losing
army's hasty retreat to Taiwan, leaving her to fend for herself as the Communists marched
into the capital.
The wife, distraught, committed suicide by hanging herself from the rafters of their
three-story French Baroque mansion.
Locals claim that the spirit of the scorned woman has been haunting the house ever since.
The house, Chaonei No. 81, today appears to be the ideal breeding place for ghostly activity,
with its floor-to-ceiling cobwebs and collapsing flooring.
The mansion has stood uninhabited for years, turning into a lonely enclave.
According to folklore, the Qing royal dynasty built it as a church for the British inhabitants
of Beijing.
In recent years, there has been a boom of interest in the house, with rumors circulating
online and word of mouth spreading about a new film set there.
The elaborate banisters and shards of ornamental tile flooring are the only remnants of the
mansion's past beauty on the inside.
Building materials, beer bottles, and cigarette butts litter the area, much of it left by
the many young adventurers who sneak in late at night to experience the thrill.
7.Villa de Vecchi- Italy Villa de Vecchi is a 19th-century villa in
Cortenova, just east of Lake Como, also known as 'Cassa Rossa' because of its original red
tint.
Count Felix De Vecchi, the head of the Italian National Guard and a patriotic hero for his
role in the revolution in 1848 that resulted in Milan's freedom from Austria, commissioned
the property.
Despite its magnificence and excellent location, the property has been vacant for decades.
Locals have linked the house to several legends over the years.
The property has earned the nicknames "Ghost Mansion" and "Casa Delle Streghe," which translates
to "House of Witches."
Architect Alessandro Sidoli designed and erected the villa De Vecchi between 1854 and 1857,
as Count Felix de Vecchi's summer house.
De Vecchi, a well-read and well-traveled man, designed his new home in a mix of Baroque
and Classical Eastern styles.
The Count supposedly arrived home in 1862 to discover his wife brutally murdered and
his daughter abducted.
He committed suicide at home after a long and fruitless search for his daughter.
Historians have recently discredited this.
The Count’s wife had already died, and he was suffering from liver problems when he
moved into the home.
He handed the property over to his brother, Biago, after he died at 46.
Biago planned to change the property, eventually removing the dome and completely erasing the
Eastern influence.
He and his successors would own the land until 1938.
After that, they abandoned it and the house remained empty for around twenty years.
Local businessmen eventually bought the home.
By that time, people had looted and destroyed much of the home’s interior.
Villa de Vecchi is now abandoned, having been uninhabited since 1938.
The Italian Environment Fund has run public awareness initiatives for the property in
recent years.
The site has gotten more attention over time because of its reported paranormal activities.
It has earned the title of Italy's most haunted mansion.
6.
Bannerman Castle- New York If you've ever stood along the Hudson River
near Newburgh and gazed out over the water, you've probably noticed the abandoned castle
perched on an island in the center of the river.
Your eyes aren't playing tricks on you.
The impressive Bannerman Castle is on the six-acre land known officially as Pollepel
Island.
Francis Bannerman, a Scottish armaments dealer, is the man who bought the island in 1900 and
began construction the following year.
While still in his teens, Bannerman launched a military surplus company after the Civil
War.
His company quickly rose to the top of the world's military surplus market.
He promptly constructed an extensive showroom on Broadway and Broome Street and supplied
weapons to Spanish American War volunteers.
Bannerman profited handsomely during the fight, purchasing 90 percent of all captured Spanish
armaments.
He then wanted a secure location away from crowded regions to keep his massive hoard.
Pollepel Island was a good choice because it was unoccupied and natives claimed spirits
haunted it.
When Bannerman purchased the island, he began designing his armory room and storehouse,
settling on the style of the Scottish castles he had visited.
An armory, storerooms, and even a summer palace with docks, towers, and a moat were all depicted
in the intricate design.
Bannerman himself landscaped the grounds.
When Bannerman died the castle was still being built.
The powder house blew up in 1920, proving the complex needed to be built on an abandoned
island.
The explosion, which was produced by 200 tons of shells, destroyed the castle's tower.
Bannerman's family remained on the island until around 1930 when it fell into decay
and neglect.
Another fire, this time alleged to be arson, reduced the castle to ruins in 1969.
It has remained a ghost house since then.
What’s the spookiest place you have ever visited?
Tell me about your experience in the comments.
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5.
Minxiong Ghost House- Taiwan The Minxiong Ghost Home, voted the spookiest
haunted house in 2019, lives up to its reputation.
Legends surrounding this estate range from marital affairs to suicide to secret societies,
but whatever you think, the dead may haunt this property.
In 1929, Liu Rongyu built the baroque rival-style palace, also known as the Old Liu House, and
sits amongst overgrown flora.
According to one of the most common legends, a housemaid had an affair with the homeowner,
a deed that angered his wife.
Her pressure would later drive the maid to take her own life, drowning in a neighbor’s
well.
As if this story isn't enough, another myth suggests that a soldier committed suicide
after hearing mysterious voices in the house.
The enormous estate contains some strange history within its magnificent but decaying
walls.
4.
Halcyon Hall- New York This spooky, gothic palace was formerly the
home of New York women who pursued higher education.
The Bennett school was a six-year, women-only institution before becoming a junior college.
A few weeks after bringing a whole cohort of first-year students to campus, it closed
and declared bankruptcy in the wave of co-ed education.
Halcyon Hall, a 200-room facility that served as a hotel before being converted to an academic
building in 1907, is still intact today.
The abandoned property deteriorated and changed hands several times before surviving several
attempts to demolish it.
The halls, imposing and overgrown with plants, appear satisfied with suffering without totally
collapsing.
3.Los Feliz Mansion- Los Angeles According to legend, Dr. Harold Perelson,
his wife, and their three children lived in this hilltop estate.
Perelson, a distinguished doctor in the late 1950s, became horrified about the state of
the city and, to some extent, the world in general when he savagely murdered his wife
in her sleep with a ball-peen hammer.
He took his own life by swallowing acid and taking tranquilizer tablets after attempting
the same horrible crime on his young daughter.
Many people have speculated without success his reasons for executing such a heinous crime.
The haunting of the mansion that followed has been persistent, although many owners
bought and sold it several times over the next 60 years.
What's creepier?
The house changed little until 2016, with the same dust-coated decor and eerie emptiness
as it was in 1959.
Would you be brave enough to spend the night in such a place?
Please let us know in the comments section below.
2.
Lennox Castle- England John Lennox Kincaid, a descendant of the Earl
of Lennox, had this home and castle, located north of Glasgow, built in the early 1840s.
The Glasgow Corporation bought and converted the castle into a mental hospital.
The main castle structure was surrounded by buildings that eventually housed approximately
1,200 patients.
Fights, instability, and riots among the patients began to break out around the turn of the
century.
In one such brawl in 1956, some of the male prisoners attacked the nursing staff, and
guards later captured and confined them to a tiny hut.
Scottish authorities had the Lennox Castle Hospital decommissioned in 2002, and they
demolished all other structures on the grounds.
The Celtic Football Club attempted to create training facilities in their place.
The castle has since succumbed to fire and nature, and it now stands as a stunning, haunted
ruin.
1.
John List House- New Jersey John List murdered his whole immediate family
in their New Jersey home in November 1971, including his wife, mother, and two children.
He then saw his 15-year-old son play soccer before shooting and killing him when he returned
home.
Then in the ballroom, which had a signature Tiffany's stained-glass skylight valued at
least $100,000, he lined up all the bodies, except his mother’s, turned on all the lights,
cut his face out of a family portrait, and escaped.
Authorities did not discover the bodies and crime scene for another month when classmates,
neighbors, and teachers wondered where the family had gone.
Meanwhile, List had moved to Denver, where he worked as a manufacturing controller and
ran a carpool service at his Lutheran church under a fictitious name.
In 1985, he met and married a woman there, and it wasn't until 1989 that police apprehended
and arrested him.
He never accepted responsibility for his crime.
What a heartless monster!
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