Stephen King's spooky house to become spooky museum and spooky writer's retreat

By Sam Barsanti | October 17, 2019 | 4:22pm

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Stephen King's spooky house to become spooky museum and spooky writer's retreat

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Stephen King is getting on in years, and he spends a good chunk of his time with his wife in their Florida mansion, so he’s going to do what any reasonable person would do with their other mansion and turn it into a museum. According to Rolling Stone, King’s home in Bangor, Maine (the town that inspired Derry from It, among what we can assume or some other, less iconic claims to fame), has gotten unanimous approval from the city council to be rezoned as a non-profit so it can be turned into an archive of King’s work and a writer’s retreat for people who want to write their own stories about scary clowns, haunted hotels, and sci-fi/fantasy cowboys roaming a post-apocalyptic planet in hopes of killing an evil wizard.

The idea is for the house—which looks fairly normal beyond its ornate bat and spiderweb-covered gate—to retain some kind of purpose and not become a simple tourist attraction, and you’ll need approval to go dig through King’s stuff once it actually opens. Rolling Stone says one of the city council members pointed out that King has “donated literally millions of dollars to various causes in the community,” so creating a permanent institution to his legacy “is important” to Bangor.