Got $800,000? You Can Buy Your Very Own Connecticut Village
The deserted village of Johnsonville, Connecticut, is being auctioned off. Starting bid is just $800,000. So what if it’s a little spooky?
Johnsonville may be a ghost town, but its price isn’t scary at all. On October 28, bidding will begin at $800,000 for the 62-acre lot. Not too bad for your very own Connecticut village!
According to Auction.com:
This historic village presents a unique redevelopment opportunity to combine the historic value of the 19th century village with 21st century living as permitted uses include: single family, multifamily housing to include market rate and affordable, senior housing, arts/entertainment center, B&B’s, inn, restaurant/banquet facility, retail shops and schools.
The potential new B&B/entertainment facility/cult compound is replete with history. Part of East Haddam, Conn., Johnsonville—120 miles southwest of Boston, 30 minutes from Hartford—was once home to the bustling Neptune mill (destroyed in 1972 by a lightning strike), which harnessed power from the Moodus River for twine production. Inhabitants abandoned it in the 1960s, however, when demand for twine declined.
In the 1960s, a man named Raymond Schmitt purchased the property with the intention of turning it into a tourist attraction. He enlisted the help of local builder Tom Kronenberger to assist in the construction of the village—technically, an “incorporated place’’ without distinct politicians—relocating historic buildings such as the Gilead Chapel and Hyde Schoolhouse to Johnsonville.
Kronenberger’s son Brian, of Kronenberger & Sons Restoration, has fond memories of Johnsonville.
“I started working summers there at 10 years old and continued through my college graduation,’’ he said. “My brother, Tom Jr., worked there too, and my sister got married in that chapel. For my dad it’s definitely emotional: he spent over 20 years working there.’’
Following a feud with local officials, however, Schmitt closed the village down and sold it. He died a few years later. The Hartford Courant reports that MJABC LLC has owned the property since 2001, though it has been deserted for years. Still, several buildings of historic significance remain, including a general store, carriage house, and the mansion of village namesake Emory Johnson, Brian told Boston.com.
The brokers at RM Bradley are hoping that the village’s dilapidated condition, the result of years of neglect, will be a selling point. The spooky connotations of an abandoned old New England village are precisely why Jim Kelly, senior vice president of RM Bradley, put the ghost town on the market just before Halloween.
Johnsonville was featured in a 2012 episode of “Abandoned’’ on the National Geographic Channel. The show’s hosts explored the dilapidated architecture and valuable antiques that had been left behind. “This place is creepy,’’ they admitted.
And, indeed, though there have been no suspicious crimes or visions of specters, local legend has it that the ghost of old Raymond Schmitt still walks around the village, unwilling to depart from the place that he loved so much.
But for the bargain price of $800,000, even the most superstitious bidders might be willing to take their chances.
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