Two Pennsylvania Homes Featured on HGTV’s Scariest House in America

On her search for the scariest houses in America, comedian and actress Retta visited two spooky Pennsylvania homes in a recent episode titled “Apparitions of Appalachia.” 

Ghosts in Greenville  

In Greenville, Retta met Edward and Thom, the owners of a 300-year-old Addams family-style haunted mansion, fittingly located next door to a tombstone business. The two recounted seeing shadow forms at night and having lights come on out of nowhere. 

“As far as we know, at least five people have died in this house,” Edward said. The house operated as a funeral home from the 1930s to the 1990s and was the largest family-run funeral parlor in Pennsylvania.  

One of the home’s most unique features is a corpse door – a door in the wooden floor where bodies would be lifted through from the basement morgue. The morgue itself formerly held 12 autopsy tables. 

“That basement is ridiculous,” Retta said. “It’s never going to be a rec room, is all I’m saying.” 

Between the cold and creepy basement morgue and the disappointment room – an attic room where children with mental or physical disabilities would be hidden away – the Greenville home, nicknamed “Gomez and Morticia’s Home Away From Home” by Retta, was a tough contender for the scariest house in Appalachia.  

Cemetery in Centre County 

Retta traveled to Bellefonte to meet Kat and Ed, the owners of the gatehouse of the Union Cemetery. While they don’t own it, the cemetery is practically located in their backyard, as the tombstones sit close to the home. The house itself straddles a narrow paved road used for funeral processions.  

Built in 1858, the 2,325-square-foot home was originally used as the caretaker’s home. In the ‘70s and ’80s, it operated as a haunted house. It was refurbished later in the 1980s and recently purchased by Kat and Ed, who report that the doors lock on their own, toys move by themselves, voices whisper from nowhere, and ghostly footsteps walk up and down the stairs. 

“This house is surrounded by headstones,” Retta said, noting the view from the kitchen window. 

In addition to cemetery views, the house features original wood floors and a trap door to one of three separate basements – this one being a creepy six-foot-tall space with dirt flooring and a history of mold. 

“Our four-year-old now has an imaginary friend,” Kat and Ed said as they entered their kids’ room, which is the most haunted one in the house. “He was telling me one day about the other little girl who lives here – ‘Sometimes, she sleeps with me and we play.’” 

The Scariest House in Appalachia 

After visiting another spooky dwelling in West Virginia, Retta named Kat and Ed’s Gables Over the Graveyard home as the scariest house in the region, moving them one step closer to potentially having the Scariest House in America and winning a $150,000 renovation.