Is the Conjuring house real? The Harrisville farmhouse, explained

What the legend says

The Conjuring house explained in a sentence: a family moves into an old Rhode Island farmhouse, strange things happen for a decade, two paranormal investigators hold a séance, and forty years later a film turns it into a franchise. The family were the Perrons. Andrea Perron, the eldest daughter, has written a three-volume account, House of Darkness, House of Light, the first part of which appeared in 2011, according to NBC 10. In it the family's time in the house runs for ten years from 1970. Other sources, including the Boston Globe, place the move-in more than fifty years ago without a precise date.

Ed and Lorraine Warren came to the house during those years. Rhode Island Monthly puts their visit in 1971; the Boston Globe says they conducted a séance in 1973 to try to rid the home of spirits. The Perrons' description of that evening, including a possession, is theirs alone. No other household that has lived in the house has reported anything like it.

Where it started

Who built the Conjuring house, and how was it built? It is a farmhouse on 8.5 acres bordering Douglas, Massachusetts. The Boston Globe describes it as an eighteenth-century cabin, also known as the Old Arnold estate, home to eight generations of the Arnold family starting in 1736. Rhode Island Monthly says construction began in the late 1600s and was completed in 1736. Boston.com gives the house as 3,109 square feet with three bedrooms. So the Conjuring house in Rhode Island is older than the United States, and for most of its history nothing was written about it at all.

The haunting narrative starts with the Perrons and the Warrens in the 1970s and was private for decades. It became public with Andrea Perron's 2011 book and then the 2013 film. The film is, in NBC 10's phrase, an embellished story of the Warrens' account.

How it grew

The house changed hands twice in three years. The previous long-term owner, who disputes any haunting, sold it in 2019 to Cory and Jennifer Heinzen, paranormal investigators from Maine, for just under $440,000. The Heinzens opened it to the public for tours and overnight investigations, and in September 2021 listed it for $1.2 million. Andrea Perron told NBC 10 at the time: "Frankly, if I had the money I'd buy it myself just to protect it."

On 26 May 2022 the Boston developer Jacqueline Nuñez bought it for $1,525,000, a Burrillville record, after the sellers added a condition that no buyer may live in the house year-round, Boston.com reported. Under Nuñez, Rhode Island Monthly listed day tours at $25 for ages 13 and up and private overnight stays at $960 to $1,280 a night. Then the business unravelled. The Boston Globe reported that Burrillville's Town Council declined to renew the house's annual licence in November 2024, that a foreclosure auction was scheduled for 31 October 2025, and that the auction was cancelled when the bank sold the mortgage to an undisclosed buyer. The Globe also reported that a Ghost Hunters television host had launched a fundraiser with a $1.5 million goal to buy the house and keep it open.

Which details hold up

• The house, its 1736 date and the Arnold family's long ownership are in town and press records.
• The Perron family really lived there through the 1970s, and the Warrens really visited. The dates of that visit differ by source, 1971 or 1973.
• Everything paranormal comes from the Perrons' memory and the Warrens' files. The owner who lived there for the next three decades disputes it.
• NBC 10 calls the 2013 film an embellished story of the Warrens' account.
• The business built on the haunting, with overnight stays at four figures a night, dates from 2019 and has had two owners and a foreclosure process since.

Verdict

Is the Conjuring house real? Yes, and you can find it on a Burrillville tax map. The Conjuring house mystery is a different question. The only evidence for a haunting is the testimony of the Perron family, who lived there half a century ago, and of the Warrens, who built a career on such cases. A later owner of three decades disputes it, and the paying guests since 2020 have produced stories, not records. Real or Legend files the Conjuring house as disputed: a real place whose reputation rests on one family's account.

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