Franklin Castle
Near Cleveland, Ohio
Franklin Castle on Franklin Boulevard in Cleveland's Ohio City neighborhood is widely called the most haunted house in Ohio, though its real history is sad rather than supernatural. German immigrant banker Hannes Tiedemann built the Victorian stone castle between eighteen eighty-one and eighteen eighty-three, and in the years that followed he and his wife Louise lost several children to illness while living within its walls. Tiedemann sold the house in eighteen ninety-six.
For much of the twentieth century it served as a German social club, reportedly hosting illegal liquor production during Prohibition. When the club sold it in nineteen sixty-eight, ghost stories about the Tiedemann children began circulating on Cleveland's west side and never really stopped. The castle has changed hands many times since, cycling through owners who variously proposed turning it into a restaurant, a bed and breakfast, and a private residence.
It remains one of the most architecturally striking and contested buildings in the city.
