Join me for one last look inside the home steeped in Angelino lore that sold for $2,350,000 on December 10, 2020.
© Cody Loves Horror
On December, 6 1959, Dr. Harold Perelson went on a bloody murder-spree inside his home at 2475 Glendower Place in Los Feliz. Nobody has lived inside the 5,050 square foot home since that night in December 1959. After sitting vacant for more than 60 years since the brutal murders, the Los Feliz Murder House sold for $2.35 million on 12/10/20.
Los Angeles Times / December 7, 1959
A Dark Tourist Attraction
Most LA-residents like me have long known about the Los Feliz Murder Mansion. This house sat like a midcentury time capsule, filled with personal belongings and decor from the fifties until it was cleaned out in 2016. The bravest of teenagers, ghost hunters and dark tourists alike would hop the back gate at night and shine their flashlights into the windows, finding retro decor and wrapped Christmas presents that supposedly once belonged to the Perelson family. In January 2016, photographer Alexis Vaughn gained access to the home shortly before it was cleaned out and listed on 3/28/16 for $2,750,000 - posting photos on her blog: Life in My Lens.
© Cody Loves Horror
Doctor Kills Wife & Himself in Murder/Suicide
So why did revered physician Harold Perelson snap that December night in 1959? Financial and legal troubles were likely to blame. Dr. Perelson had sunk most of the family's savings into a hypodermic syringe of his own invention, claiming a man named Edward Shustack stole his earnings. A two-year legal battle left the Perelsons financially drained and when he wasn't in court, Dr. Perelson was in the hospital suffering repeated heart failure. Harold and Lillian Perelson and their three children - Judye, Joel and Debbie - moved into the Spanish style home at 2475 Glendower Place sometime in the fifties but may have been in over their head with the mortgage.
© Cody Loves Horror
Sometime around 5:00 a.m. on December 6, 1959, Harold Perelson took a ballpeen hammer and began to beat his sleeping wife Lillian to death with it as she slept. As Lillian asphyxiated on her own blood, Harold went into his eighteen-year-old daughter Judye's room and started bludgeoning her with the same hammer. Judye managed to fight off her father and run nextdoor to a neighbor, Marshall Ross, who phoned the police. Judye's screams awoke her siblings Joel and Debbie but their father told them to go back to bed. They were simply having a nightmare he assured them.
Joel and Debbie ran out of the house unharmed. Judye was taken to the hospital in an ambulance and treated for skull fractures but would end up making a full recovery. When the police arrived at 2475 Glendower Place, they found Lillian lying dead in a pool of her own blood in the master bedroom. Harold was dead beside her, having taken enough barbiturates to overdose. Next to Harold's corpse was a copy of Dante's "Divine Comedy." Dr. Perelson's hands clutched a passage that read:
“Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within the forest dark, for the straightforward pathway had been lost.”
Alexis Vaughn / Life in my Lens
One year after the murders, 2475 Glendower Place sold to Julian and Emily Enriquez of Lincoln Park except the pair never lived there, only stored some of their possessions inside the home. They also never moved any of the Perelson family's things out which added to the mystique of the property. And so the Los Feliz Murder Mansion sat like a rotting time capsule until their son, Rudy Enriquez, passed away in 2015. One year later, the home sold to attorney Lisa Bloom and her husband for $2.289 million in 2016. The pair had no problem with the home's tragic past. The renovations needed to get 2475 Glendower Place up to code were far scarier to the Blooms.
© Cody Loves Horror
On May 16, 2019, the Los Feliz Murder House was listed for $3.5 million and after sitting vacant for over sixty years, finally sold on December 10, 2020 for $2.35 million - that's over $1 million under the asking price.
There were no blood stains. Those mats were taped down recently to protect the hardwood floor when the house was being gutted. #facts. It was my house.
Thank you for sharing the Life in My Lens Blog. The photographer did a good job of documenting the house.
Great research you did on this. You even got the Newspaper from 1959! Very impressive indeed.
Nobody has lived inside the house since 1959? That’s over a half a century!
Haunted houses have always mystified me. It’s sad I have never had a chance to visit one.