The Shunned House – 135 Benefit Street

Poe walked past it repeatedly — on his way to court a poet, the story goes — and never once wrote it down. That omission haunted H.P. Lovecraft, who set his 1924 novelette "The Shunned House" here at 135 Benefit Street, conjuring a century of mysterious deaths, phosphorescent cellar mold, and a vampire the merchant family refused to take seriously. The house, built around 1763, still stands. It is private property and someone's home — which, given the story, seems either very brave or very uninformed.