Perched on a hill overlooking the railway town of Junee in southern New South Wales, the Monte Cristo Homestead has long claimed to be Australia’s most haunted house.<\/p>\n
For the past 63 years, people have travelled from far and wide to visit the 140-year-old Victorian manor, drawn by whispers of ghostly encounters and chilling folklore.<\/p>\n
The house is now on sale after the death of its former owner, with Junee Mayor Bob Callow saying its peculiar history was an attraction.<\/p>\n
“People have said yes, they have experienced things here,” he said.<\/p>\n
“It has obviously drawn the attention of people with that sort of interest.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
One of the bedrooms inside the Monte Cristo mansion in Junee.\u00a0 (ABC Riverina: Jostina Basta)<\/p>\n
Cr Callow hopes any future buyers of the iconic house will honour its legacy.<\/p>\n
“It would be hard for the town if someone came and just turned it into a house or an Airbnb,” he said.<\/p>\n
“To have it come back as a tourism venue would be the best outcome.”<\/p>\n
The Monte Cristo Homestead overlooks the railway town of Junee in southern New South Wales. (Supplied: Ray White Junee)<\/p>\n
From a slab hut to a mansion<\/p>\n
The property started as a small slab hut, but Christopher Crawley and his wife Elizabeth turned the property into a Victorian-styled manor in 1885, where they raised their seven children.<\/p>\n
At the time, the property was a testament to the couple’s growing wealth and success, becoming a status symbol and one of the region’s social centres, according to the homestead’s official website.<\/p>\n
The Crawleys hosted balls for the town’s wealthy and powerful.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Bob Callow is hoping the next owners will breathe new life into the famous homestead. (ABC News: Rachel Holdsworth)<\/p>\n
Cr Callow said the homestead was not the only legacy the Crawleys had left the town.<\/p>\n
“They built the big Junee Hotel, they had a general store next door, and a theatrette,” he said.<\/p>\n
“They did a lot of things for the town itself.”<\/p>\n
Tragedy struck the family after Mr Crawley died of blood poisoning. Other family members also experienced untimely ends within the homestead’s walls.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Gail Commens is the secretary of Junee’s Roundhouse Railway Museum.\u00a0 (ABC News: Jostina Basta)<\/p>\n
Gail Commens, from the town’s Roundhouse Railway Museum, said as a local for more than 70 years, she had heard many different stories from visitors and tourists over the years.<\/p>\n
“People swear and declare that they’ve seen things, they’ve heard things, they’ve felt something on their shoulder, like a hand,” she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“It’s what you believe, I guess.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Monte Cristo homestead is fitted out with Victorian-era furniture.\u00a0 (Supplied: Ray White Junee)<\/p>\n
Restoring an almost-demolished property<\/p>\n
By the time the late Reginald Ryan and his wife Olive purchased the 18-room property, it had been abandoned for more than a decade and on the brink of collapse.<\/p>\n
Cr Callow said the couple did a lot of work to restore the home to its former glory, adding their own unique touch.<\/p>\n
And because Mr Ryan was a “great storyteller”, he turned the property’s history into a gripping tale.<\/p>\n
“When they first picked it up, it was an absolute wreck \u2026 Reg rebuilt the place in such a way that it became an iconic part of the town and internationally known,” Cr Callow said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Dolls are the only current tenants in the homestead. (ABC News: Jostina Basta)<\/p>\n
The couple turned the ramshackle mansion into a monument of the bygone Victorian era it was built in \u2014 both as an attraction and a home alongside their five children.<\/p>\n
Visitors could book ghost tours in the homestead, or if they dared, stay overnight to fully immerse themselves in its history.<\/p>\n
The tour organisers claimed multiple ghosts haunted the house, including the ghost of Christopher Crawley.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
One of the bedrooms in the Monte Cristo mansion with portraits on the wall. (ABC Riverina: Jostina Basta)<\/p>\n
Visitors have claimed to have had paranormal encounters, including objects moving on their own, figures visiting their bedrooms at night, ghostly apparitions and strange smells.<\/p>\n
‘A pinnacle listing’ with an uncertain future \u00a0<\/p>\n
Property manager Jason Barrett said it was not just the Monte Cristo’s “haunted” reputation that was part of the appeal.<\/p>\n
Alongside the mannequins and dolls watching over visitors, whoever buys the house for the second time in its 140-year history will inherit its Victorian-styled decorative wallpaper, blood-red drapery curtains, quaint antiques and pink chandeliers. \u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Jason Barrett is a real estate agent at Ray White, Junee. (ABC News: Rachel Holdsworth)<\/p>\n
Mr Barrett said the “one of a kind” listing had garnered lots of attention.<\/p>\n
“I’ve been blown away by the interest \u2026 there’s been enquiries from right across the country,” he said. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Mrs Commens said it would be a “shame for the whole town” if the house lost its rich history because many people visited other attractions in Junee during their stay.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Film crews came, people came all over the world to see it, and to see us … you don’t get a house like that everywhere,” she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Perched on a hill overlooking the railway town of Junee in southern New South Wales, the Monte Cristo…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282862,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64,63,134,147974,163367,163365,163366,163364,163368,163363,4686,1003],"class_list":["post-282861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-ghost","tag-ghost-history","tag-ghost-tourism","tag-ghost-tours","tag-haunted","tag-junee","tag-monte-cristo-homestead","tag-property","tag-real-estate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}