Step Inside Massachusetts’ $1.2 Million ‘Most Haunted’ Home—If You Dare
Pierce hired a renowned local architectural firm, E. Boyden & Son, to design the mansion. The construction involved more than 100 workers and resulted in a grand estate which featured intricate, hand-carved woodwork throughout. It was truly a testament to Pierce’s wealth and status, but almost immediately after his family moved in, tragedy struck.
Pierce’s first wife, Susan, was hit with a sudden bacterial illness that quickly claimed her life, and although Pierce eventually remarried, Susan’s death cast a dark shadow over the property. Then, after Sylvester Pierce died in 1888, the family fortune began to dwindle, and Pierce’s youngest son, Edward, eventually converted the home into a boarding house.
LAER Realty PartnersA fireplace holds photographs of S.K. Pierce and his wife Susan.
During the Great Depression, the S.K. Pierce Mansion reportedly became a hotbed of gambling and prostitution. One sex worker was allegedly strangled in the boarding house’s “Red Room,” and she now haunts the property — along with the ghost of a man who is believed to be her killer.
However, The Gardner News noted in 2021 that there is no historical evidence to support that the home was ever used as a brothel. Then-curator Kenneth Watson also stated that the story about the murdered sex worker was not true, nor was there any record to support claims that famous figures like Norman Rockwell, Bette Davis, or Calvin Coolidge ever stayed at the home when it served as an inn in the early 20th century.
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