For $525K, Perfectly Preserved Historic Mansion Comes With Ghostly Cleaning Staff
The 10,000-square-foot Fay mansion is more than a century old, yet it’s never been on the market. Now it’s asking just $525,000.
Apparently, the historic property, which used to be a social club, even comes with ghosts in the attic – and these aren’t just any ghosts; these are cleaning ghosts.
Leslie Piermarini, the former bar manager with the social club, offers this as proof of the legend: There are no cobwebs in the attic, as though the former servants are still around cleaning it.
The 1884 mansion, about 50 miles northwest of Boston in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, was built for industrialist Charles Flagg Fay, whose daughter Lucy inherited it. (And Alice, Lucy’s sister, is said to be one of the ghosts.) She donated it in 1910 to become the members-only Fay Club bar and restaurant, which remained in continuous operation until last summer. Under straining costs and waning membership, the club shut down in June, according to the Sentinel & Express.
While it may not be as cheap as other historic mansions we’ve featured, it does seem like a steal, especially when you factor in the free help in the form of spirit servants.
Thanks to the uninterrupted ownership of people dedicated to preservation, the original building is largely untouched. All the original woodwork, mantels and stained glass remain more than 130 years later.
“Everything was done by hand; the staircases, the railings, the wallpapers in there are amazing,” Piermarini told the Sentinel & Express. “There are so many relics in there. That pool table alone, how many games do you think were played there?”
The pictures on the wall are all men, she says with a laugh, with skinny ties, smoking cigarettes.
During Prohibition, the bar had secret compartments, and cabinets that would open when you pressed a button. “They got raided but they never got caught, and that poor cop never got a promotion,” Piermarini says.
Right now, the mansion is ideally fitted for a restaurant, office space or mixed commercial/residential space, the listing says.
Renovations would be required to bring the second floor back to the mansion’s days as a residence. Still, that’s what Piermarini would like to see happen to the place. She spent countless hours reading Lucy Fay’s diaries, given to her by a lawyer of the club when he died, and has fond memories of the building. Like many others in the town, she wants to see the beautiful old place preserved.
More historic mansions on Yahoo Real Estate:
• Aging Playboy Mansion Asks $200M; Some Call It a ‘Teardown’ (68 photos)
• A Mansion Built for Jesus (26 photos)
• You Can Own a 30-Room Mansion for $30K – With a Catch, of Course (25 photos)
