What emotions do you get from this house?

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I have been amazed so far at some of your thoughts and emotions on this house. Some have been eerily accurate. I am not sure when enough is enough and reveal the house to you. So let me know if you think I have let this go long enough.

Reason I am doing it? I have always loved house plans. I have bought several house blueprints that were special to me. And I am using some of them in a novel I am working on. Since the house I showed you on this thread is famous, I am trying to see if it causes an emotional response in people that fits what it is. Since it seems to be doing so with some of you in a remarkable way, I feel I need to analyze the house plans that I am wanting to use in my novel. So I might be asking you that are willing to help me to comment on some of those houses.

I appreciate your responding to this thread.

The reason, i think, that this house is drawing negative ideas, is because it's so startk, barren, and empty of personality. it has no anima. The biggest discrepancy for me is the lack of an upper roof. Then there is the "box" look to the fenced balcomies. The sign out front makes it look institutional, and the lower front windows are unbalanced making the left side seem to sink into the darkness of the overhang even more. Shadows are horrible things.

None.

What is this place, Glider?

The house, as some of you no doubt figured out, is the Whaley House in San Diego, California. It has been considered by many as the most haunted house in America---by those who believe in ghosts. It was also designated as officially haunted by the U.S. Department of Commerce. Now let's see how close you got to this 1857 mansion built for Thomas Whaley and his family.

The house could easily be described as depressing. The Whaley family's young son died there in 1858. A daughter later committed suicide there in 1885. In December of 1868, the Whaley's rented out an upstairs bedroom to be used as a theatre for the Tanner Troupe. But 17 days after the 150 seating capacity theatre opened, Tanner died. In 1869, Thomas Whaley rented out his home's one story section as a courtroom for San Diego. The rental money was much needed. In 1870, the city decided to vacate the Whaley's courtroom. Thomas Whaley was upset. The Panic of 1873 nearly wiped the Whaley's out, but they struggled to survive, and did. That same year, Thomas Whaley grew very ill, but recovered. In 1960, years after the Whaleys lived there, the house was made into a museum.

Other things that happened at the site of the Whaley House was the hanging of a man named Yankee Jim before the house was constructed. Yankee Jim struggled severely before death in the ill-rigged noose. In the mid-1960s, Regis Philbin (of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire fame) hosted a show from the Whaley House. Paranormal activity is claimed to have been captured during the show. As hauntings continued to be prevalent at the house, investigations were conducted. The U.S. Department of Commerce declared the Whaley House as genuinely haunted. Today, the house is still a museum and is famous for conducting nighttime tours of the house. Many people, including staff workers as well as tourists, have reported unexplained phenomena in the house. It is considered by experts who research hauntings as the most haunted house in the United States.

So---look at what you wrote. There are many emotions and descriptions given that match eerily close.

Thank you for taking part in this little piece of research. It seems that a house might be able to provoke emotions in people that seem to match its actual history (coincidence?). Or, do we need more houses?

OMG! How about another house? This is interesting.

I sense a warm vibe, but that was coming from the atmosphere in the picture rather than the house itself (although it looks more like an inn to me). The sunny clear skies and the trees around it feel like it's in a warmer climate.
As for the actual house, it seems welcoming and open... perhaps a little too much. It lacks privacy.

Can you post some more and insert a random "haunted" one and see if we can tell?

looks like a cozy little building, the brick work and the veranda make it look warm and inviting

I was gonna say it looks like a prison.

That would be a better idea. And a bit of fun, too.

Sorry to be cynical, but IMO the reason people have come up with "feelings" that are close to the real story behind the house is because you asked.

Feel free to prove me wrong by going about it more scientifically

Thank you all for your interest. Yes, I will do more of these.

Ebonwinter---I will do a Random haunted house one.

And I will also post more houses for emotional response as well.

Thank you again for your interest in this.

Ditto.

Boredom? Queasiness.

No emotion at all, it's totally unremarkable. My first thought (after "presumably this is the house of some serial killer, or maybe it's somewhere like Kanner's house, or maybe it's a house glider lives in or might live in") was "yeesh, is that a flat roof on the main bit, flat roofs are such a bad idea... oh, no, wait, it's probably okay if it's some desert-y place" - in the town where I live, they built all the houses with flat roofs to start with. Now almost every house has a proper roof built on instead.

Andrew Solomon writes about depression in his book The Noonday Demon, An Atlas of Depression and the expression noonday demon really struck a chord with me. I knew exactly what he meant from experience. Anyway, this house made me think of that concept. I just found the source of the expression, it is from an early church text describing various "demons".

from:http://earlychurchtexts.com/public/evagrius_of_pontus_eight_logismoi.htm

The demon of acedia, which is also called the noonday demon, is the most burdensome of all the demons. It besets the monk at about the fourth hour (10 am) of the morning, encircling his soul until about the eighth hour (2 pm). [1] First it makes the sun seem to slow down or stop moving , so that the day appears to be fifty hours long. [2] Then it makes the monk keep looking out of his window and forces him to go bounding out of his cell to examine the sun to see how much longer it is to 3 o’clock, and to look round in all directions in case any of the brethren is there. [3] Then it makes him hate the place and his way of life and his manual work. It makes him think that there is no charity left among the brethren; no one is going to come and visit him. [4] If anyone has upset the monk recently, the demon throws this in too to increase his hatred. [5] It makes him desire other places where he can easily find all that he needs and practice an easier, more convenient craft. After all, pleasing the Lord is not dependent on geography, the demon adds; God is to be worshipped everywhere. [6] It joins to this the remembrance of the monk’s family and his previous way of life, and suggests to him that he still has a long time to live, raising up before his eyes a vision of how burdensome the ascetic life is. So, it employs, as they say, every [possible] means to move the monk to abandon his cell and give up the race. No other demon follows on immediately after this one but after its struggle the soul is taken over by a peaceful condition and by unspeakable joy.

I also think that the picture could have been taken from a different angle and different lighting and i might have had a completely different impression.