Searles Castle - Great Barrington, MA - Ghosts and Hauntings on Waymarking.com

The stone French chateau-type Searles Castle, a.k.a. the Barrington House or Kellogg Terrace, was built in the 1880s, in the Renaissance style to a design by architects Sanford White then Henry Vaughan. It was commissioned in 1888 by Mary Hopkins, widow of railroad millionaire Mark Hopkins, at a cost $2.3 million. Mary was wealthiest woman in America at the time. She remarried Edward Francis Searles, who had designed the interior. After Mary Hopkins died in 1891 Edward Francis Searles maintained the castle until his death in 1920. The structure was later modernized after his death.

"Thumps behind walls. Voices from the ceiling. Sudden breezes and dancing lights. Ghosts evidence themselves in many ways." Link

"According to legend, the eccentric Searles also oversaw the construction of a network of secret passageways and staircases throughout the mansion. In one version of the legend which appeared in a recent collection of folklore, Searles used one of these staircases to carry on an affair with one of the servants while Mrs. Searles, then sickly, remained bed-ridden in the master bedroom. In this version, Edward eventually poisoned the ailing Mrs. Hopkins Searles, but within weeks of her death both the maid and Searles died of accidents in the house. It almost goes without saying that 'all three are said to haunt the manor to this day'.” Link

"One modern legend has it that in the late 1970s, a boy snuck into yet another secret tunnel, this one running from the basement out beneath the pond behind the castle. The tunnel caved in, killing him and flooding the basement. The tunnel was cemented shut, and the boy became yet another resident ghost." Link

The 54,246 square foot castle contains 40 rooms and 36 fireplaces. Most recently it housed John Dewey Academy, a boarding school for troubled teens. In 2007 they offered the property for sale for $15 million. They have since taken the property off the market and continued to operate as the John Dewey Academy. Link

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