The Rhode Island farmhouse made famous by the horror movie franchise The Conjuring has sold to a buyer who wants to use the property to help others “connect with spirits”.
According to Inman, the home, which dates back to approximately 1736, sold for US$1.525 million – well above its US$1.2 million asking price.
The one caveat with the sale of the three-bedroom, 288sq m property was the new owner had to use the house to run a paranormal business.
The previous owners, Jenn and Cory Heinzen purchased the property for US$439,000 in 2019 and ran a paranormal investigation business out of it.
Any potential buyer of the property was required by the owners to sit for an interview with the couple to make sure they met their requirements, which included an agreement to continue running the house as a business where customers can pay to spend the night and investigate the home’s paranormal past, along with honouring the existing bookings, and not actually living in the house.
The couple told the Wall Street Journal they rejected multiple offers above the asking price from buyers who would not agree to be interviewed.
“We got a lot of ridiculous bids, but the people refused to be interviewed,” Ms Heinzen told the WSJ.
The historic farmhouse in the town of Harrisville was previously the home of Andrea Perron who claims her family had a number of paranormal encounters at the property between 1971 and 1980.
Ms Perron said she saw her mother levitating in a chair during a seance and then being thrown 20 feet, before hitting the floor so hard she thought she died. Her mother now has no memory of the event, she said.
The family has also told paranormal investigators of an unseen entity slapping one of their siblings in the face, and of a scythe flying off a barn wall and nearly decapitating their mother.
New buyer Jacqueline Nuñez, a real estate developer from Boston, told the WSJ she intends to team up with the Perron family for events at the house, and turn the property into a learning centre where people can connect with spirits not necessarily connected to the house but to them personally.
“It’s time to make the farmhouse a place of love,” Ms Perron told the WSJ.
