Welcome to Houzzmedia! You ever drive past a house, and it’s just frozen in time, just sitting there, all forgotten, just waiting for something to happen? I have an avid fascination with these places.
Of course, you speculate, right, why people just let them rot, especially these huge, beautiful mansions that were once somebody’s pride and joy. Maybe it’s crime, maybe it’s ghosts, or maybe it’s something even more sinister.
Now, let’s glance at some of these chilling stories where walls might be abandoned, but the memories. they are still alive and well.
Villa De Vecchi, Italy: The House of the Witch.
First of all, there is Villa De Vecchi in Italy, better known by its nickname, “House of Witches.” Well, just a look at this mansion, and you would be chilled. Built in 1857, it was presumptively supposed to be a summer retreat for Felix De Vecchi and his family.
Instead, it became almost instantaneously more house of horrors than holiday spot. Things were grim from the get-go. The architect? He died during construction. But that was only the start.
Coming home in 1862, Felix found his wife dead and his daughter missing.
Nobody knew what happened to them, and the house became a ghost of its former self. Some even further say that famous occultist Aleister Crowley performed rituals there.
The villa was left to rot for decades but still receives strange occurrences. An avalanche in 2002 destroyed everything in the area, except Villa De Vecchi. It was left standing, untouched, as if something dark was protecting it.
Lucy House, Alabama: A Buried Secret
Now, in Uniontown, Alabama, stands the Lucy House. Remains of a boy named Alan Lucy were found under the front porch in 1994. This boy had disappeared back in 1985.
The search for him went cold, but the rumors didn’t. Even his adoptive brother Jason had told classmates that he had seen their father bury Alan’s body. For whatever reason, nobody had believed him at that moment in time.
The skeleton of Alan was found deep in the front yard during renovations years later. His father, Philip Lucy, was arrested and locked away.
What even makes it more chilling is how the town had ignored Jason’s warnings, brushing them off as a story from a child. Well, it wasn’t a story. It was a nightmare buried right under their noses.
Liu Family Mansion, Taiwan: Ghostly Hauntings
In Taiwan, one of the most well-known ghost houses is the Liu Family Mansion, also called the Ming Young Ghost House, which has been deserted for over 70 years. Since then, a number of rumors about why the family left have floated around.
One of the most chilling of those tales is about a maid who supposedly had an affair with the husband, Leu Rong Yu. The wife committed hectic torments on the maid-the latter having thrown herself into a well within the premises.
But even death was not a relief. Her spirit was said to terrorize the family frequently enough until they couldn’t bear it anymore and abandoned the mansion.
Another story goes that during World War II, soldiers of Japan had camped inside the mansion. At stroke of midnight, one of the guards saw a shadowy figure and began to shoot. Of course, everyone out of panic started firing.
But in that confusion, they started killing each other. Today, the abandoned, grim-looking mansion still stands a shadowy reminder of its tragic past.
Los Feliz Murder Mansion, L.A.: A Family Torn Apart
Los Angeles has its infamous spot: the Los Feliz Mansion. In December 1959, Dr. Harold Perelson was a man who had it all but snapped and killed his wife with a hammer while she slept. He then turned to his eldest daughter, who screamed; thus, the other kids woke up and got out of the house.
The police arrived to find that Dr. Perelson had died by suicide, having left behind a copy of Dante’s Divine Comedy opened to a passage about a lost path.
The house went unoccupied for decades. It sat, untouched, staunchly reminding anyone of that dark night. Finally, in 2020, the house was sold. Deep within its walls, an eternal memory went with this tragedy.
Some say that he is still out there, hiding away from the world, to keep the secret safe.
LENNOX CASTLE, SCOTLAND: A haunting hospital
Lennox Castle in Scotland? It has it all: the look of a haunted castle, complete with dark history and an ex-life as a mental hospital. Built in 1841 for John Lennox Kincaid, it would later become a World War II hospital for soldiers and the mentally ill.
The place truly was a nightmare. Fights among patients were common, to the point where one time, a full-blown riot broke out.
By the 1980s, the hospital was outdated and finally shut down in 2002. But the place has been left to decay ever since-a crumbling reminder of the chaos that once filled its halls.
Deans King Mansion, London: The Children of God Cult
Then, there is Kings Dean Mansion in London, one of the spookiest places on Billionaires’ Row. It wasn’t only home to the rich and celebrity-studded; it housed one of the most disturbing cults, the Children of God, which is today known as The Family International.
Founded in the late 60s by David Berg, the cult combined those damned evangelical teachings with “free love” that often used children tragically.
This mansion was a place where all that madness came about, and though the leadership has changed, the scars will remain in the mind forever. Survivors came forward, recounting the most terrifying tales of their time there. Unbelievable that this group, after all this, still keeps surviving in any form today.
Winchester Mystery House, California: A Maze of Madness
Now, if there were a place that’s really out of the ordinary, it would have to be the Winchester Mansion in San Jose, California. Sarah Winchester, the widow of the man who had the famous Winchester rifle named after him, was under this impression that spirits of people killed by guns her husband sold haunted her. So she kept building and building to confuse the ghosts.
And the outcome? It resulted in a sprawling mansion, maze-like in structure and with hallways that lead to nowhere, staircases that end within the ceiling, and doors that open into the walls.
Standing today, quite unlike any other, it is now a tribute to one woman’s desperate attempt to escape her past.
Elda Castle, New York: Cursed into Creation
Elda Castle in New York may seem like a fairytale from the outside, but from within it is anything but magical. Given that the castle was built by David Abercrombie of Abercrombie and Fitch fame, the castle was supposed to be his dream home for him and his family.
Then tragedy struck when their daughter Lucy died as a result of an accident. Then David himself died within the castle.
For decades, it has been abandoned, and though many tried to restore it, always some misfortune happened with them. Maybe Elda Castle is really cursed.
Mudhouse Mansion, Ohio: Legend Lives On
There is also the Mansion of Mudhouse from Ohio that entertains more creepy stories than one would like to count. The house was built in the middle of the 1800s and soon became the centerpiece of urban legends.
People say the family living in this house was murdered, while others tell stories of how they lost their sanity due to an evil spirit haunting the house.
Even though the mansion itself was torn down in 2015, they still say people see strange figures wandering around the grounds.
These are places long abandoned, still echoing with life that once dwelled. The stories can be buried, but they are never truly forgotten.
