By Erika Mailman | Wall Street Journal
What’s the protocol for moving into a haunted house? Jenn and Cory Heinzen recommend a gentle entry. In 2019, when they purchased the Rhode Island house made famous by the movie “The Conjuring,” they initially kept to one downstairs room, sleeping on cots for the first four months. Besides being scared, says Mr. Heinzen, “it was a sign of respect for the spirits, letting them get used to us instead of barging in.” Sure enough, he says a full-bodied black apparition appeared in the doorway to peek at them, but gave them a more curious vibe than malevolent. “Once we realized we were both awake and both seeing it, it was gone,” Mr. Heinzen recalls.
Since then, the couple say they have connected many times with spirits in the house, and have built a business allowing paranormal investigators to spend the night on the property; they are booked solid throughout 2022. Now they are selling the home, ghosts and all. The three-bedroom, roughly 3,100-square-foot home is listing for $1.2 million with Benjamin Kean and Ben Guglielmi of Mott & Chace Sotheby’s International Realty.
“I’m looking for someone who will continue to run the business as we’ve started it,” says Ms. Heinzen.
The house is located about 40 minutes from Providence in the small town of Harrisville, on 8.5 acres in a grassy clearing. Built of dark, weathered clapboards, the house conveys the aura of a home brooding over its own hauntings. Inside are wall stencils, hand-dipped candles, bundles of dried herbs, and an unfinished wooden staircase leading to a vast, stone-walled cellar. The original structure was built circa 1736, says Mr. Kean, but first showed up in records in 1836. An aerial photo of the home surrounded by forest gives you every “lock the door, clutch a crucifix” impulse you’ve ever had.
