The House
Nearly three centuries under one roof
The farmhouse you can visit today was raised in 1736 and has stood through almost three hundred years of Rhode Island history. It is a real, lived-in home — not a film set or a recreation — and every family who passed through it left something of their story behind. What follows is the history of the house, the land it sits on, and the people whose accounts carried its name far beyond Burrillville.
The Old Arnold Estate
The land beneath the house
The property is part of what was long known locally as the Old Arnold Estate — a substantial tract of farmland in the rural northwest corner of Rhode Island. For most of its life this was a working farm, with fields, stone walls, and a family burial ground among the trees.
That sense of accumulated history is part of what makes the house so striking to visit. You are not walking through a single story but through the overlapping lives of everyone who worked this land across nearly three hundred years.
A Timeline
From 1736 to tonight
The farmhouse is built
The original farmhouse rises on the land that would become the Old Arnold Estate — a working Rhode Island farm of roughly two hundred acres, with the house at its heart.
Generations on the land
For nearly two centuries the property passes through Rhode Island families who farm the land and raise their children within its walls, leaving the layered history that visitors sense today.
The Perron family arrives
Roger and Carolyn Perron move in with their five daughters. Almost from the start, the family reports a presence in the house — the beginning of the decade that would make it famous.
A decade of accounts
Over ten years the family documents a long series of experiences throughout the house and grounds. Their accounts are later recorded at length and carried to a wide audience.
Open to investigators
The genuine house still stands on the genuine land. It is kept open for public ghost hunts, private overnight investigations, and guided history tours throughout the season.
History reads differently after dark
The best way to understand the house is to stand inside it. Choose an investigation or a guided tour and see the place for yourself.