3 Abandoned Mansions With Pasts So Chilling They’ll Make You Look Over Your Shoulder

There’s something uniquely eerie about abandoned places. This is especially true about abandoned homes, which were at one point, a family’s most private and personal safe space. And you know what’s arguably even creepier than an abandoned house? An abandoned mansion. Though they used to be worth millions and represent grandeur and wealth, they’re now lying empty and in disrepair. (Unless you count ghosts, and I’d bet my night light that most of these still have plenty of ghostly inhabitants lurking around…) But aside from being creepy, abandoned houses and mansions also usually tell important stories with valuable lessons—even if there aren’t any mortal occupants roaming the grand halls anymore. Ahead, discover the most compelling abandoned mansions around the world and prepare to be thoroughly creeped out by their backstories.

1. Lucy Murder House

This once-beautiful Greek Revival mansion in Uniontown, Alabama looks like it’s being swallowed up by the earth, and its tragic past certainly lives up to the haunting aesthetic. In January of 1994, the remains of 13-year-old Allan Lucy were found buried beneath the front porch of the Hardie-Coleman House—or, as it’s better known online, the Lucy Murder House. Allan, who lived in the home with his adoptive parents, Phillip and Margaret Lucy, disappeared without a trace in May of 1985. In the months that followed, Jason Lucy, Phillip and Margaret’s biological son, told classmates that his father killed Allan and buried him in the backyard.

For years, no one believed Jason’s story, even though rumors about the Lucy family swirled around town long before Allan disappeared. Decades after Allan Lucy’s murderer was brought to justice, the house has still not recovered—largely due to environmental injustices that have driven many residents out of Uniontown and left those who remain fighting for justice of their own.

2. Lennox Castle

Lennox Castle in Scotland was built in 1812 for John Lennox Kincaid Lennox. He was supposedly a distant relative of the Clan Kincaid, who were descendants of some of the notable ancient Earls of Lennox. Long story a little shorter, the castle was home to an important Scottish family—until it was converted into an asylum for the mentally ill in the 1930s and a hospital during WWII, when the existing mentally ill patients were transferred to other buildings on the property.

Apparently, fights among the patients were common, and in one particularly bad fight, much of the staff (along with uninvolved patients) ran from the hospital. But the rioters were locked inside and, in the end, they significantly damaged the ward. The hospital was vacated by the 1980s and officially closed in 2002. There’s now talk of converting the building into flats.

3. Lynnewood Hall

Oooh, how the mighty have fallen. To say Lynnewood Hall is massive would be a massive understatement. Indeed, it’s the twelfth largest historic house in the U.S. It features a whopping 110 rooms (like a ballroom that can accommodate 1,000 guests) outfitted in neoclassical architecture, and it once held the most important private art collection of European masterpieces in the country.

Unsurprisingly, it’s from the Gilded Age. It was built in 1900 for Peter Arrell Brown Widener, a businessman who became wealthy from investing in public transit and meat packing, among other things. He had three sons (one of whom died on the Titanic) and lived in the house until he passed in 1915. His son Joseph inherited the mansion and lived there until he died in 1943 and no surviving members of his family, even his children, wanted to take on the responsibility of the place. By 1945, Widener’s estate was valued at $98,368,058!

A developer later tried to sell Lynnewood, but the only taker was a fundamentalist preacher, Carl McIntire, who bought the home in 1952 for $192,000. It went into foreclosure in 2006 when the McIntire organization couldn’t pay the mortgage.

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