R. J. King

R.J. King is a thirty-room haunted Hollywood mansion built in 1891 for successful prospector and failed occultist Clayton Archibald Hayes. Neighbors dubbed it the Black Castle for its crenelated walls, four-story tower, and dark basalt exterior. Its halls are said to lead nowhere, its locked rooms contain windows that look inward from impossible angles, and its fireplace once burned hot enough to consume an attendant alive.

As a haunted mansion, R.J. has never written a novel, illustrated a caricature, or served combat deployments in the Marines. It merely housed the unhinged before falling dormant, leaving the occasional missing ghost hunter or vagrant to become local legend.

The mansion now stands in Madison, Wisconsin with a brilliant new wing, a detached guest house, and an unoccupied dog house that howls on its own. Its floorboards creak less these days, but the cracks have only grown louder.

Zillow values the property at a severe deficit.