Savannah

Why does a coveted piece of real estate stand empty and, apparently, abandoned?

I see this question written a lot and the answer, at least to me, seems rather mundane. It usually in reference to large stately manors. In this particular case it’s about a house in Savannah that no one will occupy. And when someone does by the property the workers leave one day and never return. Is it the ghosts that keep people away or is it something else?

How about this for an explanation?

Let’s take that house at 423 Abercorn in Savannah. A Greek Revival that stands abandoned. Why won’t anyone live there?

First, check out the price, it’s listed at nearly $800k. And that’s down from the millon dollars they were asking for previously.

Second, the house has been abandoned, vandalized and allowed to rot. To fix the house will cost a fortune, perhaps as much as the house itself. That doesn’t include putting furniture back into it.

Third, the house is in the historic district of Savannah. You have to get permission from everyone and their mother before you do ANY work. You’ll have to involve the city, historic society, SCAD and not to mention multiple hearings and months, perhaps years worth of paperwork lay ahead of you. You won’t just buy it an move in.

Fourth, the yearly taxes are around $12k. Every year you will have to pay at least $12k for the upkeep of the house. That’s a $1000 a month on top of everything else.

Fifth, insurance. You’re gonna have to insure it. God forbid something happens to it after you fix it up. For a historic home, in that area, that won’t come cheap.

Right off the bat you’re looking for someone with a lot of cash on hand and who is incredibly patient. That person will need to put up with a lot of shit too. Not just red tape, but haunted tours, sightseers, onlookers and plenty of other publicity. Don’t like the limelight? Don’t build in Savannah.

So why do works mysteriously stop working? Why is the house always abandoned? I’m pretty sure it’s because the money has dried up. No one works for free. And you can’t build without permits.

Anyone agree? Is this more plausible than workers being assaulted by unseen forces?

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Bonaventure Cemetery

Bonaventure is a place I’ve wanted to visit for nearly a decade. My friend Randy and I talked about it years ago before he moved to Arizona. He’d been there and spoke very highly of it. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see Bonaventure until the last day we were there, and by then we were running late to get back home. But even in that short time to say the place is breathtaking is an understand. It’s is indeed gorgeous. The trees covered in Spanish moss and the sago palms make it a spectacular setting. It’s an extremely large place as well. It would take hours, perhaps even days to make your way around to everything. I can see exactly why the Bird Girl statue was a chance discovery. The place is so massive and there is so much to see that you could walk right past it and not even notice.

But here are a few pictures featuring the trees, the statues and the memorial for Johnny Mercer.

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Images of Savannah

Here are some pictures from one of the cemeteries we passed on the way to Bonaventure. It was truly wonderful to be there and to take pictures on these fantastic structures and statues. I forget the name of the cemetery, it might simply have been referred to as the Catholic Cemetery.

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Another false start for Savannah hauntings

My Savannah trip has me very excited about it’s haunted houses and mysterious past. But what I keep finding are false starts and dead ends. Here’s another example of a story that let me down.

A website I was reading had a picture of a house where the woman who took the photos sees two evil red streaks in the photo. You have to look at the enlarged original, but there they are, two wild swirls of red in the window.

The picture was taken during twilight and her camera doesn’t like low light. The lines follow the same horizontal pattern basically mirroring each other. Again you won’t find that in nature, which makes me wonder. It was getting dark and the camera doesn’t adjust well to low light situations. Based on my previous photography experience we’re looking at a slow shutter speed and fringing. Basically, a perfectly normal, just slightly blurred picture that catches some reflection off the glass. The camera is at a slow enough speed to capture the movement of the sun as the person taking the photo moves slightly.

Again, this just proves that people want to believe, just like Mulder said.

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