This week's Top 10 homes spotlight at TopTenRealEstateDeals.com includes a look at America's scariest homes. It’s almost Halloween, that spooky time of the year when ghosts, goblins and zombies might be just around the corner, and the annual ‘Top Ten Haunted Homes for Sale’ list comes out! Frightening and scary homes you can actually buy. If you are brave! It was once one of America's best mansions. Now, it might be the scariest house in the world! Back in the late 1800s, the Thousand Islands, that run for about 50 miles along the Saint Lawrence River between New York and Canada, was where the gilded age tycoons built their summer homes. The wealthy tried to outdo each other and the mansions became bigger and better. Perhaps the most magnificent was the Carleton Villa constructed for William O. Wyckoff, who was the president of the Remington Arms Company. Remington made a fortune manufacturing guns during the Civil War. The mansion was built on the site of an Indian campground and British military fort. Carleton Villa was glorious in every way. From its 36 rooms and 111-foot observatory tower to its gaslight beacon and views of Lake Ontario and the Saint Lawrence River, the Villa might have become the icon of Industrial Age wealth and flamboyance. But something went seriously wrong! Wyckoff's wife died from cancer just a month before they were supposed to move into the mansion. And when Mr Wyckoff moved in after his wife's death, he died of a heart attack on his first night at the grand estate. Today, the mansion's seven-story tower is long gone and the rest of the mansion is a nightmare of cobwebs, broken windows, caved-in ceilings and piles of rubble guarded by barbed wire and “keep out” warnings. No one has lived in the home in almost 70 years. Although the mansion is for sale asking $495,000, the scribbled “Help Me” plea written on the home's ceiling might discourage some buyers. Carleton Villa isn't the only haunted house currently for sale. TopTenRealEstateDeals.com compiles an annual Halloween listing of homes for sale that some people say are haunted. In addition to the Carleton Villa, this year’s “Haunted Homes For Sale” list includes: A New Orleans estate where a Turkish Sultan and his entire harem were murdered in the 1800s. The Los Angeles home designed by Frank Lloyd Wight's son that is rumored to have been the place where the Black Dahlia was murdered in 1947. A 200 year old Ohio inn that is one of Ohio’s best weekend getaways, but also one of its most haunted spots. A huge New Jersey estate once owned by the Sisters of St. John the Baptist where supposedly the mother superior murdered dozens of nuns and orphans. A beautiful lake home in Florida where the longest shootout in FBI history took the lives of Ma Barker and her boys in 1935. A traditional Hollywood Hills home where some people say Ozzie Nelson's ghost still lives. The West Virginia site where John Brown met his demise in 1859. One of the world's most famous mansions in Miami Beach where a serial killer completed his crime spree by murdering the king of fashion. Even a Colorado ghost town complete with main home, guest cabin, saloon, train depot and chapel. The loud crash in the middle of the night. The lights that turn on by themselves. The scratching at your window on a blustery night that bleeds the courage from your veins. No one ever said owning a home was easy. What difference could a few ghosts make? Real estate is never boring at TopTenRealEstateDeals. Check out today's most entertaining and unusual real estate news stories of the week. News such as weird but wonderful homes, Bernie Madoff's celebrity victims, and a brand new home for Mitt Romney.
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Happy Halloween: America's Scariest Haunted Homes You Can Buy