Hidden in the undergrowth across the USA stand the forgotten ruins of remarkable historic homes. Once the playgrounds of high society, these estates are now crumbling shadows of their former selves with some pretty fascinating stories to tell. From tragic tales of heartbreak and haunting to a prince from outer space, we reveal the curious past lives of some of America's most intriguing abandoned stately homes.
Dating back to 1838, this grand pre-Civil War estate was once a landmark home in Milledgeville, Georgia. The regal residence was built for Colonel Samuel Rockwell, an attorney and slave owner. Captured by Leland Kent of Abandoned Southeast, these incredible images show the home's sad decline after it was abandoned back in 1969.
No expense was spared on the property's imposing design, with every piece of wood that went into the construction hand-cut with expert skill. The bill for the wrought-iron fence alone is said to have been around $2,600 (£2.1k), which is around $86,000 (£69k) in today's money, and $100 more than Colonel Rockwell paid for the house itself. This is said to have given the Colonel a heart attack, if stories are to be believed. The mysterious abandoned mansion isn't short of other intriguing rumours either, including that gold is buried somewhere on the land.
After Colonel Rockwell's death in 1841, the property passed through a number of hands across the years, including those of Georgia Governor, Herschel Vespasian Johnson. Over the decades, the house is said to have been a hub for Midgeville's high society and looking at the impressive entrance, it's easy to imagine its grand former life.
After years of neglect, the local dentist attempted to revive the property in the 60s until a fire broke out in 1969 causing extensive damage. The house then languished in a state of disrepair until 2019 when it was purchased by a group of investors, who restored the elegant building to its former glory, as seen here in one of its tasteful bedrooms.
The house has been painstakingly restored to replicate its original aesthetic as far as possible, although the exterior is white rather than the traditional yellow of the period, ready for its reincarnation as a popular wedding venue. Don’t look for the dining room, with its black marble mantel and plaster cornices, however. In an attempt to raise funds for repairs following the fire, it was sold to the Winterthur Museum in Delaware and is still on display today.
Set among almost 50 acres of dense woodland, this huge abandoned castle is located in New York's Westchester County. The vast stone mansion was built and designed in the late 1920s by David Thomas Abercrombie, the co-founder of clothing giant Abercrombie and Fitch, and his wife, Lucy Abbott Cate.
The property's title, Elda Castle, comprises the first letter of each of the couple's four children's names in birth order: Elizabeth, Lucy, David and Abbott. Long abandoned, the home has lost the fight with Mother Nature, yet the 4,337-square-foot mansion is still undeniably enchanting. Once upon a time, this remote, romantic home must've been the perfect country retreat for the Abercrombie family.
Rewind to the late 1920s and this once elegant residence must have been a wonderful retreat for Abercrombie and his family, with its idyllic courtyards and grand, sweeping driveway. It was not to be, however. Just a couple of years after its completion in 1927, his daughter Lucy died in a factory chemical fire in 1929, while his son David died in 1937, after being kicked by a horse in the stomach, according to reports.
Spread across a number of storeys, the home features arched doorways, a cast-iron spiral staircase, bespoke leaded windows and an outdoor fireplace, as well as 25 rooms. Sadly, David Thomas Abercrombie's time at the property was short-lived too and the entrepreneur passed away in 1931 at the castle, after which his widow moved to New Jersey to live with her daughter, Elizabeth.
While several subsequent owners have tried to bring the crumbling castle back from the brink over the years, none have been successful, creating something of a lore around the seemingly irreparable property. Since 2017, the estate has been on the market and was most recently listed for almost $3 million (£2.4m). Here's hoping this fairytale estate gets the happy ending it deserves.
Built in 1896 by property developer and Memphis royalty Robert Brinkley Snowden, this once palatial home was originally known as Ashlar Hall after the Ashlar stone used in its construction. The 11,000-square-foot castle, seen here in a series of images from Abandoned Southeast, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983 and in the 1990s a rather eccentric new owner snapped up the estate….
Robert Hodges purchased the 19th-century abandoned American castle in 1990 and transformed it into a restaurant and nightclub. The eccentric millionaire, who claims to be a 333-year-old alien ambassador from the planet of Zambodia, lured in patrons by the dozen with his late-night parties, until in 1992, two teenagers driving home from the club were killed in a car accident.
Although no charges were ever filed against Hodges for any responsibility, says The Mirror, the so-called Castle nightclub, with its grand and imposing rooms, was eventually closed down by the authorities due to overcrowding. The self-proclaimed 'Prince' moved party-goers to the car park outside the venue and brought in 800 tons of sand to transform it into a beach in response. But soon after, the quirky property was abandoned and fell into disrepair.
Once an atmospheric building with sweeping staircases and stained-glass windows imported from Italy, the castle is now a shadow of its former self. Hodges, who is infamous for his many unsuccessful bids to become mayor of Memphis, gave away the building to a friend, who turned it into a non-profit for veterans. But today, it’s a sorry sight with graffiti on the walls and the rooms strewn with rubbish.
Luckily, help was at hand. In 2016, real estate contractor and investor Juan Montoya purchased the derelict property for $59,000 (£47k) and after a few false starts, the renovation is almost completed, as you can see from its pristine exterior. Montoya has spent around $1 million (£802k) on renovations so far but hopes to reinvent the property as an events space. The future is finally looking brighter for this storied building. If walls could talk!
Straight out of a Brothers Grimm fairytale, construction on this fantastical castle on Red Mountain in Rougemont, North Carolina began in 2000. Its creator, local architect and sculptor Robert Mihaly, known for his work at Washington National Cathedral and Duke University, built the fanciful structure to serve as his studio and home.
The design appears to be inspired by Central and Eastern European architecture, complete with onion domes, 18 pinnacles, a turret and even a smattering of mean-looking gargoyles. Although Mihaly managed to complete much of the exterior, he was forced to put work on hold following his divorce from his wife and the promising self-build project sadly descended into a state of disrepair.
With the interior spaces far from complete, the modern castle was reduced to ruins and quickly became a haven for graffiti artists. The wooden floors are rotting and debris blown in from the broken windows covers the floor. Mihaly has not given up, however. Determined to fulfil his dream, the artist started a fund-raiser to kick-start the project in 2014.
Photographed by the artist in the snow, it certainly looks like an impossibly romantic setting for a marriage celebration. The artist says despite the building's state of disrepair, people are constantly dropping by, trying to catch a glimpse of the unusual building. Castle Mont Rouge has even been named the second-best secret vacation spot in the state, according to a recent survey. So he'd better hurry up and finish those renovations!
One of the last things you'd expect to come across in Upstate New York, the dramatic ruins of a castle, can be found on Pollepel Island, an islet in the Hudson River, not far from the town of Newburgh.
The islet was purchased in 1900 by Scottish immigrant Francis Bannerman VI, who bought the land to build an arsenal for his military surplus business. A year later, construction on his famed castle began.
Bannerman designed the warehouse himself, incorporating a host of medieval touches, including ramparts, stained glass windows and romantic turrets. The idea was to create a wow-factor fortified building that would serve as a huge ad for his business.
The military surplus entrepreneur had a smaller castle-like building constructed next to the elaborate warehouse, where he resided for a number of years. But when he died in 1918, the grand home build wasn't quite finished.
In 1920, a massive explosion destroyed part of the structure and the building went into decline. By the 1950s, the complex was left vacant and in 1969, a fire gutted much of what was left. Now the property of New York State, only the ruins of Bannerman's Castle remain.
This romantic ruin may have a cheerful name, but its tragic history is anything but. In 1903, Kansas City businessman Robert McClure Snyder, Sr began purchasing land near Camdenton, Missouri, including the Ha Ha Tonka Lake, which means smiling waters in the local Native American language.
Construction began on an extravagant European-style pile that same year. Sadly, it wasn't meant to be. In 1906, Snyder, Sr, was killed in a car accident, making him one of America's first motoring fatalities, and the uncompleted castle passed to his sons.
Snyder's sons managed to finish the castle, albeit on a less lavish scale than their father envisaged and used the property as a vacation home for a time until the family fortune was lost following the Stock Market Crash of 1929.
The castle was eventually leased out and converted into a hotel and lodge during the 1930s, but the business was only in operation for a few years. In 1942, a devastating fire completely destroyed the building.
For decades, the decimated castle remained largely forgotten. Thankfully, the state purchased the grounds in 1978 and shored up the ruins, creating Ha Ha Tonka State Park, and the site is now one of Missouri's most popular recreation areas.
Another abandoned mansion with a dark secret, this abandoned neo-Gothic pile sits on a thousand acres of land deep in New York's Catskill Mountains. Also known as Craig-e-Clair, it has been ominously dubbed the 'Castle of Sorrow'.
The castle is captured here by photographer Walter Arnold, who documented the castle in all its faded grandeur on his YouTube channel.
The castle was commissioned by wealthy New Yorker Ralph Wurts-Dundas in the late 1910s but he died in 1921 before its scheduled completion. A year later, his widow Josephine was committed to an asylum and the half-finished property passed to the couple's daughter, Muriel.
Dundas reportedly left a fortune of $40 million (£33m), but his daughter Muriel is said to have been duped out of the bulk of her inheritance by the castle caretakers. Construction ceased in 1924, leaving the castle in an unfinished state.
Muriel married, moved to England and ended up in a psychiatric hospital, like her mother. Following her death in 1949, Dundas Castle was bought by a group of freemasons and used as a retreat and vacation camp until the 1970s. It has lain empty ever since.
A melancholy place, Dundas Castle is said to be haunted by the ghost of Josephine Wurts-Dundas and, according to local legend, the water in the ponds on the estate turns into blood when the moon is full.
Located on picturesque Carleton Island in Upstate New York, this fine neo-Romanesque-meets-Tudor Revival mansion was built in 1894 as a summer escape for typewriter tycoon William Wyckoff and his family and cost around $100,000 (£80k) – which is around $3.5 million (£2.8m) in today's money – according to records.
The four-storey mansion featured a 111-foot tower, which was connected to the main house by two bridges, while an observatory room at the top afforded extensive views of the surrounding area. The property was said to be cursed however, when Wyckoff's wife passed away a month before he moved into the property in 1895, while Wyckoff himself met a similar fate soon after, when he is said to have died in his sleep from a heart attack during his first night in the villa.
While few photographs of the interior remain, this image shows the great fireplace in the hall, whose ceiling is supported by 40 Corinthian columns and surrounded by a gallery resting on Doric columns. The 64-room mansion included cellars where a refrigerator had room for a ton or more of ice, as well as a gas room, which powered lights in every room.
The property passed to Wyckoff's son and remained in the family until the Great Depression, when the clan fell on hard times and sold the house to General Electric. When the Second World War scuppered plans to turn the mansion into a staff retreat, the property fell into serious disrepair. The structurally unsound tower was demolished after the war and the expensive abandoned mansion was encircled in barbed wire and left to the elements.
On and off the market for years since then, Wyckoff Villa was finally snapped up by developer Ron Clapp in August 2022 for a mere $300,000 (£241k). The Florida investor recently announced he has teamed up with Aubertine and Currier architects, who restored the nearby Boldt Castle, to breathe new life into the historic building, which he plans to transform into a stylish bed and breakfast.
Steeped in faded grandeur, this ruined plantation mansion near the town of Lowndesboro, Alabama dates back to 1830 and was remodelled in a Greek Revival style during the 1850s.
The abandoned Alabama mansion passed through a couple of prominent Southern families and was bought in 1901 by Robert Dickson, who named it Dicksonia. Like many mansions in this round-up, Dicksonia was destroyed by fire.
In 1939, a catastrophic blaze completely destroyed the property and a replica mansion was built the following year. The architect bent over backwards to ensure the new structure was fireproof but to no avail.
The second incarnation of the house burned to the ground in 1964. The foundations were so damaged, the Dickson family were unable to rebuild the once-regal residence and the ruins were more or less abandoned to nature. Luckily, in the 1990s family descendant, Dottie Dickson Skipper, who lives in a house at the back of the mansion, decided to preserve the mansion as a beautiful ruin.
Over the past 20 years, the exterior of the photogenic home has featured in movies and fashion shoots, including in the opening scenes of Big Fish, where it stands in for the fictional Witch's house as well as a shoot with Natalie Portman by Annie Liebovitz, reports AL.com. The grounds are also available to hire for weddings and other events.
Back in New York, which seems to have more than its fair share of abandoned stately homes, photographer Bryan Sansivero chanced upon this enigmatic abandoned mansion in 2016. Located a few miles outside of the Big Apple, he captured the creepy house in all its eerie glory.
The 57-room mansion, which dates to the 1930s, was abandoned in 1976 by its owner, who was reportedly known to snap up grand estates and bizarrely leave them to crumble. Like a horror movie set, the time-warp home remains frozen in time.
The bulk of the mansion's fixtures and furnishings were inexplicably left to rot, including the grand pianos, antique sofas, marble fire surround and crystal chandelier that adorn the cavernous drawing room.
Adding to the creepy vibe, vintage children's toys are littered around the house. Sansivero discovered this antique doll sitting menacingly on one of the mansion's discarded sofas.
Vandals have scrawled graffiti on some of the walls, the paintwork is peeling off and some of the windows are broken, letting the elements in, but the mansion is actually in pretty good shape, all things considered. You can see more of Bryan Sansivero's stunning photography on his Instagram account.
Considered one of the greatest surviving Gilded Age mansions in America, Lynnewood Hall is an estate born of tragedy. Streetcar tycoon and art collector, Peter Arrell Browne Widener, decided to build the spectacular neo-classical revival masterpiece following the untimely death of his wife Hannah on the family’s yacht in 1896. In an attempt to channel his grief, he commissioned renowned architect Horace Trumbauer to build the 70,000-square-foot limestone mansion in Elkins Park in Pennsylvania.
Now recognised as one of the richest Americans in the country’s history, Widener’s wealth and immaculate tastes are reflected in the glorious design of his former home. It is thought to have cost $8 million (£6.5m) to build and has 110 rooms, of which 55 are bedrooms and 20 are bathrooms, as well as an art gallery and this spectacular grand entrance hall with its Renaissance-style columns and centralised staircase.
Widener and his family lived at Lynnewood Hall from 1900 until his death in November 1915. His funeral, seen here, was held in his favourite room, the Van Dyck Gallery. His eldest son, George, should have inherited the property but tragically died on the Titanic just three years earlier in 1912. His wife Eleanor survived. Peter, who had been an investor in the building of the Titanic, decided not to join his son and their family on its maiden voyage due to his advanced years.
The one-time bedroom of George and Eleanor Widener, if these walls could talk, would no doubt reflect the anguish of Eleanor when she returned home after losing her husband and son in the sinking of the Titanic. Today, its peeling paintwork and crumbling plaster are a haunting reminder of the sadness that lay within the mansion’s opulent rooms. Despite having suffered such tragedy, Eleanor is said to have gone on to live a vibrant and philanthropic life.
In the following years, the library was turned into an extravagant ballroom, as seen here. Peter Widener’s only surviving son, Joseph, continued to reside in the house until his own passing in 1943, after which the house began to decay. It changed hands several times over the years, but officially became the property of the Lynnewood Hall Preservation Foundation in June 2023, who have now prepped the house for a massive restoration and renovation to ensure its future.
Often referred to as the most haunted house in Ohio, Victorian-style Franklin Castle was the scene of several mysterious deaths and a dark and sinister history. German immigrant, Johannes Tiedemann bought the imposing mansion for his wife Luise and their surviving two children August and Emma in 1865, and set about embellishing it with a tower, a series of underground passageways and some menacing gargoyles.
The 20-room house, designed by architect firm Cudell and Robertson, was initially a happy home until several family deaths, including that of Johannes’ 15-year-old daughter Emma and his mother Wiebeka, led people to suspect the house might be cursed. His wife Luise is said to have used the tunnels her husband had installed to escape his foul temper, until her untimely death in 1895 aged 57 amidst rumours of his love affairs and trysts.
Johannes sold the house soon after and it eventually fell into the hands of the German Socialist Party in 1913. Legend says it was used to house Nazis and 20 people were murdered in the house due to political disagreements. The house was left to decay for a period after this until it was purchased by the Romano family in 1968, who dreamed of turning the property into a restaurant before strange goings-on put paid to their plans.
The four Romano children reported seeing a girl, believed to be the ghost of Emma Tiedemann, crying in a top-floor bedroom, and there were reports of mysterious footsteps, organ music and screams which led the family to engage a paranormal investigator and even a priest to perform an exorcism. To add to the myth surrounding the house, its next owner, Sam Muscatello, claimed he had found human bones in a closet.
The property was briefly owned by Michael DeVinko, the fifth and final husband of actress Judy Garland. But these days, owners Oh Dear! Productions, have embraced the property’s creepy past, offering castle tours and events at the landmark property. They have carried out stylish renovations, highlighting its rich and haunting history, and have refashioned what they believe are the Tiedemanns’ original quarters, which are available for overnight stays… if you dare!
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