THE MANSION THAT WON’T LET ITS DEAD REST: Massachusetts’ Most Haunted Home Was Just Soldfor a $1M

A Victorian mansion where multiple owners have fled in terror just sold to four brave buyers willing to coexist with its permanent residents – the ones who died there over a century ago

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The 150-year-old Victorian mansion at 4 West Broadway in Gardner, Massachusetts has new owners. They’ve signed the papers, transferred the deed, and taken possession of 21 rooms across nearly 7,000 square feet. They’ve also inherited something else: at least a dozen ghosts who refuse to leave, dark entities in the basement that have physically pushed visitors down stairs, and a reputation as the second most haunted house in all of Massachusetts.

A Million-Dollar Deal with the Dead

On September 23, 2025, the S.K. Pierce Haunted Victorian Mansion officially changed hands for $1 million – $200,000 below the original asking price of $1.2 million. The new owners are a group of four locals with strong ties to Gardner: John Godino, Rob Gilman, and David and Rhonda Bettez. Gilman, a Gardner native and resident, runs a real estate and property management company with Godino that already owns properties in the city. David Bettez is a lifelong Gardner resident who owns Gardner Auto Mart and other properties, while Rhonda Bettez is a city resident who works at Mount Wachusett.

The mansion had been on the market since April 2025, drawing international attention from potential buyers. People traveled from as far as Australia and even Transylvania for a chance to walk through the doors. Despite its notorious reputation – or perhaps because of it – the haunted factor was actually a main selling point.

The property comes with impressive statistics for any real estate venture. The current waiting list for people wanting to spend the night sits at 4,000. Ghost tours for fall 2025 sold out months in advance. The mansion already operates as a paranormal tourist attraction, and the new owners plan to continue offering tours, ghost investigations, and for the first time, overnight stays where guests will have the entire mansion to themselves.

But these new owners aren’t just buying a business opportunity. They’re inheriting what has been ranked as the Second Most Haunted House in Massachusetts and the 9th Most Haunted House in the United States.

The Rise and Fall of the Pierce Dynasty

Sylvester Knowlton Pierce was a native of Westminster who moved to Gardner and became involved in the locally-prominent chair manufacturing business. He purchased his own factory at the age of 25, located just across the street from the site where he would build his mansion. His success was so complete that Gardner’s entire city became known as ‘Chair City’.

The house was built between 1873 and 1875 at a time when Pierce wanted to showcase his wealth and status. The mansion was designed and built by E. Boyden & Son, a prominent Worcester architect, and took three years of painstakingly detailed work to complete. It took over a year and a half for 100 construction workers to build.

The mansion was a technological marvel for its era. It featured then state-of-the-art features including gas lighting in every room, a massive Winthrop furnace, and running water throughout. There was a dumb waiter that went up to the second floor, speaking tubes that served as a rudimentary intercom, and a cistern that collected a massive amount of water from the roof for laundry. The servants’ quarters on the third floor, however, received none of these luxuries – no heat source whatsoever, which with really high ceilings must have been freezing cold.

Pierce’s son converted the house into an inn. The mansion’s lore includes claims of hosting former President Calvin Coolidge, Minnesota Fats, Bette Davis, P.T. Barnum, and Norman Rockwell, though The Gardner News noted in 2021 that then-curator Kenneth Watson stated there’s no record to support these famous visitors ever actually stayed at the home. What is documented is that Pierce himself was a member of the Freemasons and the house was a meeting place for the society.

When Death Came to Stay

The tragedies began almost immediately. Just two weeks after moving in, Pierce’s wife Susan died from a flesh-eating bacterial infection. Pierce spent a year in mourning before marrying Ellen, a woman 30 years his junior. After S.K. Pierce died at home in 1888, the house was willed to his second wife, Ellen Pierce, who also eventually died there.

The mansion was then left to S.K.’s three sons, who spent years fighting over ownership of the family home and furniture business until the two eldest sons finally moved away. After Pierce and his second spouse died, a bitter inheritance battle broke out among his kids over the property, which eventually passed to his youngest son, Edward, who turned the property into a boarding house.

The boarding house era brought its own darkness. According to the attraction website, the home soon became a hive of “unsavory activity,” including “drinking, gambling, and prostitution,” while rumors of murders carried out in the dwelling began to surface. The house’s official history makes disturbing claims: a prostitute was strangled in the infamous red bedroom on the second floor, though The Gardner News noted in 2021 that there is no historical evidence to support that the home was ever used as a brothel, and then-curator Kenneth Watson stated that the story about the murdered sex worker was not true.

The Saari Incident: Death by Fire or Something Stranger?

One death that is thoroughly documented occurred on April 3, 1963. The Gardner Fire Department was summoned after occupants reported smoke coming out of one of the bedrooms. Inside the room, firefighters found Eino Walpas Saari, a World War II veteran who was lying unconscious in a burning bed. The fire was quickly extinguished and Saari was rushed to Heywood Hospital where he was pronounced dead at age 47.

The circumstances surrounding Saari’s death remain bizarre. Firefighters arrived to find the fire already out with no signs of it spreading up the walls or anywhere that wasn’t the bed. The fire was completely limited to the bed that Eino was on. There was no damage to the walls, the curtains, the furniture, the floor – nothing. Some believe this was spontaneous combustion as there was little damage to the surrounding room, though records show he died of third-degree burns and smoke inhalation after officials said he fell asleep while smoking in bed.

According to property manager Marion Luoma, who has managed the mansion for 14 years, Saari “spilled accelerant on himself that day. He came here when it was a boarding house, he lived here. He started smoking and drinking. He didn’t shower”. Saari was a Finnish immigrant who had pretty much given up on any aspect of his life that wasn’t getting blind drunk on moonshine. Today, visitors often report smelling smoke in the room where he died.

Saari’s death is the only one documented to have actually occurred in the famed home, and the incident is commemorated by a framed piece of charred material – though many other deaths are associated with the property through the years.

The Entities That Refuse to Leave

Guests have experienced everything from voices, chanting, full body apparitions, moving furniture, screens flying off windows, slamming doors, the sounds of footsteps on the stairs and halls, sudden temperature changes, foul odors, shadow people, and an ominous lion’s roar which can shake the house, which many believe is the former Mr. Pierce imposing his displeasure with the current state of the home. Others have felt the pressure of hands actually pushing them. One visitor felt that a presence was attempting to push her down the steps while another was almost forced out of a third floor window.

Paranormal experts have said that the entities in this mansion are the ‘most advanced’ they have ever seen, as they are capable of harnessing electrical energy and converting that power into the ability to move large objects and impose their will physically on their current surroundings.

The cast of spirits is extensive and specific. Since the early 2000s, countless psychic mediums and paranormal investigative groups have visited the house, most of them describing the same few spirits each time, including Maddie Cornwall, the young nanny who cared for the Pierce children. It’s believed that the mansion was the only place that really felt like home to her, and that her spirit acts as a protector of the house, keeping the other spirits in check and warding off any unwelcome trespassers.

Recent owners described seeing a little boy with yellow hair running between their windows. Others have heard a little girl laughing, who many believe is Rachel Pierce. The couple who lived in the home described seeing a woman with an evil smile and dark hair who would try to lure them into dangerous situations, possibly even trying to possess the woman who lived there.

Edward eventually lost the mansion in 1965, gambling it away in a poker game. The new owner allowed him to stay, but he had to live in a small room in the basement, where he died two years later. A dark, brooding shadow entity haunts the basement to this day, and people feel it is Edward refusing to leave his family’s great mansion.

Modern Owners and the Price of Living with Ghosts

The mansion’s recent history reads like a warning to potential buyers. Since 1999 it was basically a giant derelict building only a few breaths away from being condemned. The roof was a sieve, the top floor was completely trashed from water damage, and pigeons had taken residence up there for years. Since then it has gone through three more sets of owners, throwing two into financial ruin trying to repair it.

In 2009, Edwin Gonzalez and Lillian Otero purchased the home unaware of its reputation. Shortly after, they began hearing disembodied voices and seeing apparitions. Edwin’s and Lillian’s experiences with the not-so-friendly spirits and the nasty ones were written down in a book by medium Joni Mayhan, “Bones in the Basement: Surviving the S.K. Pierce Haunted Victorian Mansion”. They didn’t sell until 2015, leaving it empty.

In 2015, the property was purchased by Robert and Allison Conti for $325,000. These new owners bought this 21 room fixer upper for a shockingly low price sight unseen because they wanted a haunted house. The Contis set about “revitalizing” the home, turning it into a popular tourist attraction that highlights – rather than hides – its spookiest stories.

The restoration was massive. Conti shared that they had to replumb the entire house, bring everything up to code while keeping everything looking as original as possible. In the last decade, the Contis invested hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep the mansion in good standing.

A New Chapter Begins

The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2022, securing its place in American history regardless of its spectral residents.

The new owners seem prepared for what they’re taking on. Today, visitors are warned about the “dangerous” entities that purportedly roam the halls of the home, with the property’s website stating: “This attraction is not for the faint of heart. There is a good possibility that you will witness paranormal activity. The entities in this mansion are extremely advanced and have demonstrated a unique ability to impose their will ‘physically’ on guests. Please do not behave in an antagonistic manner towards these entities at any time, as you may be placing yourself and other guests in danger”.

During one early investigation, a female investigator was shoved backwards, and she would have tumbled down the central staircase if it wasn’t for two of her team members who caught her. These aren’t just stories told for atmosphere – they’re warnings based on documented incidents.

But the new owners remain undeterred. In a post on the home’s Facebook page, they stated: “All four are dedicated to being deeply involved with the community and are excited to be a part of such a big piece of Gardner history. This is a project that we feel passionate about, and we can’t wait to use this as an opportunity to support the city and connect with all of our visitors”.

They assured fans that the home will remain open to the public, adding that they plan to offer “new and exciting ways to experience the house while also honoring and respecting the house’s past and being good stewards of the house moving forward”. Tours will be an hour and a half long and include a guided walkthrough. They will continue ghost investigations on specific nights and will host yearly events. The new owners have also promised that guests will finally be able to stay overnight, getting the entire mansion to do as they please, with some rules in place to preserve the house.

Property manager Marion Luoma, who has watched over the mansion for more than a decade, offers a different perspective on the spirits. She tells visitors: “These aren’t evil or mean spirits. They’re just the people who lived in the mansion. When a loved one passes away, what do we tell them? Go be with grandma, go be with grandpa. Well, you know what, they’re all together. The whole Pierce family is here”.

Still, people call Marion saying someone is in the mansion’s windows. She says technically, they’re not wrong. But it’s no one living.

As the S.K. Pierce Haunted Victorian Mansion begins its new chapter with owners willing to embrace rather than flee from its paranormal reputation, one thing remains certain: whatever walked those halls 150 years ago when Sylvester Pierce built his dream home has never left. The new owners have purchased not just a mansion, but a responsibility to maintain one of America’s most actively haunted houses. They’ve signed the papers knowing full well that in this house, the dead have squatter’s rights that no earthly court can revoke.

The mansion that cost Sylvester Pierce a fortune to build and has cost every owner since a fortune to maintain has finally found buyers who understand what they’re really purchasing: not just 21 rooms of Victorian grandeur, but a front-row seat to whatever lies beyond the veil between this world and the next.

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NOTE: Some of this content may have been created with assistance from AI tools, but it has been reviewed, edited, narrated, produced, and approved by Darren Marlar, creator and host of Weird Darkness — who, despite popular conspiracy theories, is NOT an AI voice.