MELBOURNE, Fla. – David Fletcher’s great-grandparents built the Green Gables estate, a six-bedroom Queen Anne-style home, on the Indian River in 1896.
After also building Melbourne’s first library, high school and auditorium, William and Nora Wells passed the house down.
“The house has memories for me,” Fletcher said. “You’re little back then and everything was so big.”
Fletcher pointed out where his family had a treehouse when he was young.
“We would come out and have lunch under the treehouse,” he remembered.
Now under the old oak trees, spookier memories are about to be made.
Friday night through Sunday night, families can check in to a “dead and breakfast” but before their room is ready, they have to brave a haunted trail.
With lots of special effects, the Wells’ dream house looks more like a nightmare.
Marion Pellicano-Ambrose with the non-profit Green Gables at Historic Riverview Village said guests often ask if the old house is haunted.
“Our answer is, it’s full of spirit but not necessarily haunted,” she said.
The non-profit raised a half-million dollars to buy the house this year and keep it away from modern developers.
Now, Pellicano-Ambrose said every $10 and $20 ticket sale this weekend will go toward restoring the house. She said you can still see damage from the 2004 hurricane season.
The wooden hurricane shutters from the Wells family are the home’s originals.
“And we’d like to honor them by preserving their home and their history which is a big part of Melbourne’s history,” Pellicano-Ambrose said.
Those interested in purchasing tickets for the haunted trail can do so on the Green Gables website.
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