December 31, 2012 -- Updated 2210 GMT (0610 HKT)
The Woodchester Mansion in the Cotswolds region of England. It was abandoned midconstruction in 1873.
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Woodchester mansion
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- These peculiar buildings are mysterious beyond ghost stories, legends and fables
- From prehistoric secrets to anonymous patrons, these places intrigue
- Architecture can be as haunting as the lingering aura of tragic history
- See the buildings in the United States, Mexico, Denmark, among others
They've become popularized on websites such as abandoned-places.com, weburbanist.com and the granddaddy of them all, atlasobscura.com, an exhaustive user-generated and editor-curated database of the unusual.
Our list of mysteries
doesn't trot out cliched write-ups of the Bermuda Triangle and the
Egyptian pyramids, nor is it promoting the usual suspects of PR-pushed
haunted hotels. These peculiar structures are original, lesser-known and
often arcane.
Mystery, after all, must be authentic.
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"In an age where it
sometimes seems like there's nothing left to discover, our site is for
people who still believe in exploration," says Atlas Obscura co-founder
Joshua Foer, whose own favorite mysterious buildings include a murder
mansion in Los Angeles and an art house in Centralia, Washington.
Our definition of
mysterious is broad and varied. Some buildings on our list are being
eaten alive by the Earth, such as a sand-swallowed lighthouse in
Denmark's Jutland and a lava-buried church in the remote highlands of
Mexico. Others have design elements that seem to defy logic or were
mysteriously abandoned by their people centuries ago. New York's shadowy
Renwick Smallpox Hospital has more recent traces of human life -- and
an eerie energy that lingers. We've got the photo proof.
Renwick Hospital, Roosevelt Island, New York City
This abandoned Smallpox
Hospital, replete with granite veneer, corbelled parapets and mansard
roofs, is a reminder of Gotham's grisly past. Its 100 hospital beds once
hosted quarantined immigrants suffering from the gruesome disease. A
$4.5 million restoration project will open Renwick to the public in
2013, kicking off with an art project that includes giant butterflies
hovering over the site.
Mystery: Renwick is
illuminated at night by an anonymous patron, who purportedly has a view
of it from an Upper East Side penthouse.
Visit: The American
Institute of Architects and Classic Harbor Line offer
architecture-themed cruises around Manhattan with lectures on Renwick
and other mysterious city sites.
Loretto Chapel, Santa Fe, New Mexico
The imposing Gothic
Revival church's spiral staircase is a woodwork masterpiece that somehow
connects the choir loft to the ground-level pews without a central
column for stability and with wooden pegs instead of nails.
Mystery: Legend has it that an anonymous carpenter built the staircase in 1878 then disappeared without pay.
Visit: Just around the
corner is La Posada de Santa Fe, a three-story Victorian mansion turned
art-stuffed hotel. Suite 100 was the bedroom of previous owner Julia
Staab, and her spirit is said to haunt it.
Kolmanskop Diamond Camp, Skeleton Coast, Namibia
Bushmen considered
Namibia's Skeleton Coast "The Land God Made in Anger," while the
Portuguese called it "The Gates of Hell." Though the coast received its
name because of beached whale bones that scattered its shores during the
heyday of the whaling industry, today skeletal remains of more than
1,000 fog-sacked ships and abandoned diamond camps earn it the title.
Among the detritus being taken over by desert sands is Minenvewalter,
the manager's house at abandoned diamond mine Kolmanskop.
Mystery: Diamond miners
purportedly haunt Minenvewalter; their ax-pick-punctured skulls were
allegedly found here in the 1960s long after the colony departed.
Visit: Wilderness
Safari's Distinctive Namibia circuit includes lion and cheetah treks in
the rusty dunes but also a scenic three-hour flight over the
wreck-strewn Skeleton Coast.
Skara Brae, Orkney Islands, Scotland
Previously thought to be
a Pictish village, this massive and mysterious Orcadian village on the
Bay of Skaill is still being excavated -- and changing everything we
know about Europe's pre-Celtic era in the process. The 5,000-year-old
site predates the Egyptian pyramids.
Mystery: Even though the
village was deserted thousands of years ago, the buildings at Skara
Brae remain in good condition. Archaeologists don't know why the last
inhabitants left, although many theorize it was abandoned because of an
apocalyptic event.
Visit: Hurtigruten's "In
the Wake of the Vikings" cruise calls on ports in the ancient Orkneys,
as well as the Shetlands, Hebrides and Faroes.
Woodchester Mansion, Cotswolds, England
Stone gargoyles festoon
this 19th-century neo-Gothic mansion topped with turrets and built of
iconic honey-colored Cotswold limestone. It was abandoned
midconstruction in 1873 after its devoutly Catholic owner died. Seek out
the mansion amid a deeply secluded valley for bat tours, Halloween
parties and paranormal nights.
Mystery: During World
War II, the house was used as a temporary morgue for Allied troops.
Rumors persist of uniform-wearing spirits and 1940s music echoing in the
hallways.
Visit: Twenty miles away
in Cheltenham, the newly opened Ellenborough Park is a gorgeous
16th-century Tudor-style manor with all the posh benefits of your own
mansion.
Therme Vals, Vals, Switzerland
High in the Swiss Alps
at the end of a terminal road in a Romansh-speaking pocket of Canton
Graubünden is this stark thermal bath designed by Pritzker laureate
Peter Zumthor. Slabs of Valser quartzite create a watery labyrinth
that's by turns minimalist and quasi-industrial, but consistently eerie.
Mystery: The grottenbad
(acoustic chamber) is accessed by a narrow tunnel and allows bathers'
vibratos to bounce off the walls, creating a delightfully haunting aural
experience.
Visit: Earn some soak time in the bath with Country Walkers' self-guided Walk of the Valais and Goms Valley.
Yaxchilán, Chiapas, Mexico
This obscure
fourth-century site, along the Usumacinta River at the Guatemala border,
draped in thick strangler vines and echoing with shrieking howler
monkeys, is a tourist-free standout among Mexico's many ruins. Visitors
approach by boat, then enter through El Laberinto (The Labyrinth), a
limestone building with painted stucco panels and topped with decorative
cresterías dedicated to ruler kings such as Moon Skull.
Mystery: Yaxchilán was
mysteriously deserted in the ninth century, but pilings along each side
of the river suggest that it was the site of a sophisticated suspension
bridge.
Visit: Travel like
Mayans, by water, on Mountain Travel Sobek's Chiapas Wildlife Adventure,
which includes whitewater-rafting runs along the Rio Santo Domingo and
stops at Yaxchilán and other ancient ruins.
Rubjerg Knude Lighthouse, Hjørring, Denmark
Jutting out from a
desolate dune called Lønstrup Klint (cliff), this ghostly sentinel was
built in 1900 but abandoned in 1968 after sands and sea began to devour
it whole. The sturdy 75-foot-tall building will likely collapse from
shifting sands and coastal erosion in the next decade -- and it makes
you wonder what other Viking relics lie beneath the sand.
Mystery: The tower was
built on a dune-less cliff 656 feet from the sea and nearly 200 feet
above sea level, yet, despite rescue attempts, the elements slowly
swallowed it over the years.
Visit: Twenty miles north is a Danish Modernist country house steps from a more tranquil beach.
San Juan Parangaricutiro, Michoacán, Mexico
In 1943, an explosive
volcano in Mexico's remote mountain state of Michoacán began spewing
lava, eventually burying the villages of San Juan Parangaricutiro and
Paricutín under a coal-black layer of chunky lava.
Mystery: The
crucifix-topped bell tower of the San Juan Parangaricutiro Church just
so happened to be spared from the destructive lava, while the vacated
church's altar, at the other end of the church, is also entirely intact.
Visit: Abercrombie &
Kent's tailor-made Mexican Colonial Splendors trip takes you to the
lava-buried site from the Purépecha mountain village of Angahuan, 30
minutes away.
Coral Castle, Homestead, Florida
Made from 1,100 tons of
limestone boulders -- bigger than those at Stonehenge -- this structure,
located just south of Miami, was built from 1923 to 1951 by a single
man, a tiny Latvian immigrant named Edward Leedskalnin, as his home and
an homage to the love of his life who left him the night before their
wedding.
Mystery: How did he do
it? The jilted man claimed he knew the secret to the pyramids'
construction. Other details -- no mortar, precise seams, physics-defying
balancing acts -- have also stumped scientists for decades.
Visit: Take a guided tour for some insights into this quirky castle, where even the rocking chairs are made of stone.COPY http://edition.cnn.com/
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