The original homeowner was worried that the actor would get overtaken by a spirit and “do some serious damage.”
Kevin Bacon is sharing the spooky stipulation that came with purchasing land next to his Connecticut farm.
The actor, who first purchased his own rural farmland back in 1983, revealed on Rob Lowe’s Literally podcast that he was prevented from buying a neighboring plot of land until he contractually agreed to “destroy” a house on it that the original owner believed was ‘haunted.’
“One of the pieces that we bought had an old house in it and [the owner] didn’t want me to own the house. It was an abandoned house that he had grown up in,” Bacon explained. “We kind of went back and forth on it for a while and then, eventually, I said, ‘Listen, you can’t sell me a piece of land but not sell me the house that’s on it. Like, that’s just weird. What if you sell it and there’s somebody that’s just living, basically, right up in the backyard?’”
The owner, however, was hesitant to part with the property. As Bacon recalled, “He said, ‘I can’t sell it to you because it’s haunted and I’m afraid that you’ll get possessed and, you know, do some serious damage.’”
Bacon noted that they ended up going “back and forth on this haunted house thing” for a while until they “finally came to an agreement, in the contract, that I had to destroy it within a month” of purchasing the home.
Lowe, a supernatural expert in his own right, then interjected, “Please tell me you went and spent a night in the haunted house?”
“Not only did I not do that,” Bacon replied, “But I went up there and there were some beautiful old pine boards and a bannister and I said to Kyra [Sedgwick], ‘We’ve gotta take those out.’ And she’s like, ‘No you’re not. You’re not putting those f—ing things in our house.’”
He also revealed why the owner believed the house to be haunted in the first place. “It was a long story that had to do with a Native American who, in the 1700s, had been murdered by a colonial soldier,” he recounted. “[The owner] had had ghostbusters there. It was a whole long thing.”
While he eventually acquired the land (along with a fair few goats and miniature ponies), Bacon has yet to actually see any supernatural activity. “You’ve been in scary movies and I always find that, when you’re in a scary movie, everybody wants to know, well, have you ever seen a ghost? Do you believe in ghosts?” he said. “The thing I always say is, ‘I would really love to but, as of yet, it hasn’t happened. But I hope someday it will.’”
Lowe, who once claimed he’d talked to a real ghost while filming The Lowe Files with his sons, then proceeded to recount his own supernatural experiences from working on the series. “I wish that I had kept that house up,” Bacon joked. “That would’ve been a great episode. Celebrity haunted house!”
Lowe answered, “I would’ve been there in a minute.”
What I’m taking away from this is that Rob Lowe is literally insane.
Mix of insanity and charlatan.