These vast homes, designed by some of the most renowned architects in the world, formerly served as the residences of the wealthy and powerful—until unspeakable atrocities struck.
A lavish hilltop property in Beverly Hills, California attracted attention this week as it was listed for $85 million.
The magnificent home appears like it belongs in Netflix’s Selling Sunset, but it actually sits on the same plot of land where the brutal Manson family murders happened in 1969.
While the original mansion was torn down after the killings of Wojciech Frykowski, Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger, and pregnant actress Sharon Tate, numerous residences around the globe have been abandoned after witnessing gruesome crimes.
Here, we expose the startling tales that lie behind the expensive homes that nobody wants to live in.
“Murder Mansion” in Los Feliz
Dr. Harold Perelson moved into a Spanish-style mansion in the prestigious Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles when he was a prosperous doctor with a wife and three children.
But on December 6, 1959, at 4:30 a.m., Perelson tried to kill his three children before killing his sleeping 42-year-old wife Lillian with a hammer.
After killing Linda, he calmly entered his daughter Judye’s room, who was then 18 years old, and made an attempt to break her skull.
Judye, unlike her mother, cried loudly enough to wake her younger siblings Debbie and Joel after the first strike.
Judye managed to escape during the commotion and warn the neighbors, who then phoned the police. Perelson had earlier persuaded Debbie to go back to sleep since she was having a nightmare.
The two younger children were waiting in the lobby unhurt when police arrived, and Perelson was found overdosing and dead next to his wife who was covered in blood.
The house was sold to Julian and Emily Enriquez two years after the murder-suicide but they never moved in.
In 1984, their son Rudy received the property as an inheritance; however, he admitted to the LA Times in 2009 that he only used it for “storage” and didn’t know if he wanted to live there or even stay there.
Those who dared to peek inside the $2.5 million home describe finding a 1950s-era home complete with the original TV and Christmas presents that have been brightly wrapped but never opened.
Before being on the market, the house had recently been cleaned out.
Scotland’s abandoned asylum
John Kincaid Lennox commissioned the construction of Lennox Castle in Scotland in 1812; however, in the 1930s, the building was repurposed as a hospital for the mentally ill.
As the hospital, which was designed for only 120 patients, became dangerously overcrowded, reports of miserable conditions and cruel treatment of patients began to slip out. Conditions were described as “wretched and dehumanizing,” while the hospital was constructed for only 120.
In the year 1956, a dispute between patients escalated into a full-blown riot, which caused employees and inmates to evacuate the facility.
When firefighters arrived to put out the blaze, eight of the men inside the building barricaded themselves inside and began firing at the firefighters who had come to put out the fire.
In the 1980s, Dr. Alasdair Sim, who was the medical director of the hospital at the time, commented that he had never worked in a “worse pit” and that he felt “sick to his stomach at the plight of these poor people.”
Former patients have reported being beaten with baseball bats and made to run around the castle barefoot as a form of punishment for failing to address the medical staff with the title “sir.”
Those who made an escape attempt were given drugs, placed in solitary confinement for up to six weeks, and were not permitted any visitors.
The hospital was unofficially shut down in 2002 but had already been evacuated by the 1980s. There are currently discussions underway to turn the building into apartments.
Tragedy of millionaire designer’s $4M castle
When Abercrombie and Fitch’s founder David Abercrombie built a castle in New York state, he and his wife Lucy Cate gave it the name Elda Castle, after their children Elizabeth, Lucy, David, and Abbott. David Abercrombie was also the creator of Abercrombie and Fitch.
However, the family mansion, which is situated on 49 acres of land and featured a total of 25 rooms (including accommodations for the household staff), would become marred by calamity.
In 1928, just one year after the building was finished, the couple’s daughter Lucy was killed in a chemical accident at her father’s factory, which was located nearby.
David Sr. passed away from rheumatic disease in 1931, at the age of 64, and six years later, David Jr. was taken from this world by a tragic accident.
After the death of her husband, Lucy Cate moved to New Jersey to be with her eldest daughter, Elizabeth, where she remained until the time of her own passing in 1955.
After being abandoned for several years, Elda was subjected to vandalism by individuals who splattered paint on the marble floors and set parts of the structure on fire.
In the end, in 2019, it was sold for a price of $4 million.
Italian countess murdered at summer house
The impressive Villa de Vecchi, located in Italy close to Lake Como and dating back to 1854-1857, is also referred to as the “House of Witches.”
The breathtaking mansion was constructed as a vacation home for Count Felix De Vecchi and his family. It had priceless wall murals and 13,000 acres of land and was known for its beauty.
But in 1862, five years after it was finished, the Count returned home to find that his wife and daughter had been brutally killed, and the Count’s daughter had vanished.
He spent an entire year looking for his daughter before giving up hope and taking his own life out of desperation.
The house had been occupied by his brother up until the beginning of the First World War, but after that it had been abandoned.
In the 1960s, there was an unsuccessful attempt to sell the property, which was in part due to its reputation as Italy’s most haunted house.
In 2002, an avalanche swept over the neighborhood, destroying all of the homes, except for the villa, which was unaffected.
The Minxiong Ghost House
Since the wealthy family had suddenly left Taiwan in the 1950s and abandoned their house, it had been sitting empty in Taiwan all these years.
The family’s maid is rumored to have carried on an affair behind her employer’s back with Liu Rong-yu, according to a local folklore.
The maid was overcome with guilt when stories about the affair spread, and when Liu’s wife discovered about the romance, she committed herself by jumping down a well.
Some people believe that the family ran away after the ghost of the girl began to return to them nightly and haunt them.
A few years later, members of the Chinese political party Kuomintang (KMT), who had fled to Taiwan in order to avoid being persecuted, moved into the property and took up residence there.
The location is claimed to have a ghostly reputation due to the fact that many people are said to have committed suicide there.