I’ve always wanted to live in a haunted house; at the very least, a house of mystery. What I want is the Winchester House…but with a plot.

The Winchester Mystery House is a well-known California mansion that was under construction continuously for 38 years, and is reputed to be haunted. It once was the personal residence of Sarah Winchester, the widow of gun magnate William Wirt Winchester, but is now a tourist attraction. Under Sarah Winchester’s day-to-day guidance, its “from-the-ground-up” construction proceeded around-the-clock, without interruption, from 1884 until her death on September 5, 1922, at which time work immediately ceased. The cost for such constant building has been estimated at about US $5.5 million (if paid in 1922, this would be equivalent to almost $70 million in 2008 dollars).

The mansion is renowned for its size and utter lack of any master building plan. According to popular belief, Sarah Winchester thought the house was haunted by the ghosts of individuals killed by Winchester rifles, and that only continuous construction would appease them. It is located at 525 South Winchester Blvd. in San Jose, California.
(from Wikipedia, which, although cursory, is pretty accurate)

Great story. Close to Disney’s Haunted Mansion, which is the other house of mystery I’d love to live in.
(Go here for the complete and exhaustive story of the haunted mansion: www.doombuggies.com)

But it doesn’t have a plot either. Especially if you consider that lame-ass Disney movie. No plot, no fun.

So there’s this family in NYC who hires an architect to redo their apartment. Then, last week, an article in the New York Times appears all about the apartment and what happened there. And suddenly the rights to the piece are bought by J. J. Abrams of Lost/Alias/Star Trek XI fame, who will somehow bring the story of this apartment to the screen in a few years.

Yes, yes, I want to live here.

Here’s the link to the NYT article, “Mystery on Fifth Avenue.” Make sure you look at the slideshow.

Just remember: you, too, can have a house like this…at $300 a square foot.