112 Ocean Avenue, the house that had to change its address

In November 1974, Ronald DeFeo Jr. shot six members of his family in their beds at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, New York. That part is not a legend. It is a court record.

Thirteen months later George and Kathy Lutz bought the house with their three children for $80,000, a bargain everyone understood the reason for. They moved out twenty eight days later saying the place had driven them out. A book followed, then a film, then a franchise that has now produced more than twenty movies.

The house itself is a 1927 Dutch Colonial. Five bedrooms, a boathouse on the creek, and two quarter round windows on the third floor that photograph like eyes. Those windows did more for the horror industry than any script.

Almost everything after the murders is contested. A lawyer involved later said the haunting was invented over several bottles of wine. The Lutzes maintained until their deaths that it happened. Investigators, journalists and courts have gone back and forth for fifty years.

What is not contested is what it did to the address. Tourists came constantly. People parked on the lawn. Owners in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s all reported the same thing, that the ghosts were manageable and the sightseers were not. Eventually the house was renumbered from 112 to 108 Ocean Avenue, and the famous quarter round windows were replaced with ordinary square ones to break the silhouette.

It has sold several times since, most recently for well over a million dollars, and the listing photographs show a comfortable family home with a good kitchen and a dock.

The neighbors have a standing request for anyone reading. It is a private house on a quiet street. Please do not slow down.