I remember back when I lived in California, I lived not too far from the Stanford Dish, and on the weekends, I would be constantly driving up and down I280 with either my mom or dad. Both my parents have a healthy fascination with haunted houses (which it seems is a hereditary trait inherited by me), and a recent local legend is one we passed every week, and could just barely see from the freeway: the Carolands Mansion.
The house underwent a 20 million dollar renovation some years back, thus accounting for the pristine pictures here, but during the time I lived there, the mansion grounds were in a massive state of disrepair. The grounds were completely overrun with weeds, the fence overgrown with vines to the point that you'd never be able to see in, and vines even coated the exterior of the mansion itself like green veins of chlorophyll. I'll always remember how amazing the house looked even then, but I never really took the time to understand the history of the house, which is quite fascinating.
What really surprised me though, was the story of the murder there. Which I didn't realize until now, that it happened not too long before we lived there. Back in 1985 a security guard at the mansion let in two high school girls, locked them in a safe, abused then murdered one and attempted to kill the other. It is a truly horrific tale, which I was tempted to not even link to, as the account is not for the squeamish.
Terrible that such a horrible thing happened there, but at the same time, I still have nothing but fond nostalgic feelings for the place. It appears, at least, I'm not the only one who feels that way.
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