Reviewed by Josh N · Updated August 27, 2026 · How we verify
Reported Phenomena
- Unexplained odors
- Beds shaking
- Disembodied voices
- Unexplained knocking
- Untraceable footsteps
- Sense of a presence
- Claims of possession
- Unexplained bruising
Reported by visitors & local legend. Stories, not verified claims.
Eight and a half acres of field and stone wall outside Burrillville hold one of the most photographed private houses in New England. The Perron House in Burrillville, a farmhouse dated to 1736 and known for generations in this corner of Rhode Island as the Old Arnold Estate, would probably still be an anonymous colonial property if a family named Perron had not moved in during the 1970s and if a Hollywood studio had not turned their decade there into a franchise. What follows separates what the property records and the court filings actually show from what has been claimed about the place.
The Old Arnold Estate at a Glance
- Where: Rural Burrillville, Rhode Island, on roughly 8.5 acres
- Built: 1736, with later additions typical of a working New England farmhouse
- Earlier name: The Old Arnold Estate
- Best known for: Inspiring The Conjuring (2013), directed by James Wan
- Bought by: Jennifer and Cory Heinzen in 2019, listed for sale in 2021 at $1.2 million
- Access: Private property. Trespassing here has already produced a federal lawsuit.
A 1736 Farmhouse Long Before Anyone Called It Haunted
The house predates the American Revolution by four decades. Local accounts tie the land to the colonial conflicts between English settlers and Native people in the 1670s, though the structure standing today postdates that period by roughly sixty years, so any connection is to the ground rather than to the walls. For most of its life the property was simply a farm, passing through hands under the Old Arnold Estate name with nothing about it that drew outside attention.
That changed in the 1970s. The Perron family, according to their own long-repeated account, moved in and experienced a decade of activity they could not explain: unpleasant odors with no source, beds shaking at night, and the persistent sense of a presence in the house. Their reports escalated over the years to include claims of physical attacks and of Carolyn Perron being overtaken by something in the house. It is worth stating plainly that all of this is family testimony, repeated over half a century in books, interviews and films. None of it is documented event.
Bathsheba Sherman: Accusation, Legend, and Screenplay
The name attached to the haunting is Bathsheba Sherman, a nineteenth century local woman who was rumored in her own time to have been involved in witchcraft. Rumor is the operative word. The version most people know comes from the film, in which research by the investigators identifies the previous owner as “an accused witch and Satanist named Bathsheba Sherman,” a relative of Salem victim Mary Towne Eastey, who sacrificed her week-old baby and killed herself in 1863 at 3:07 in the morning after cursing everyone who would take her land. That is a screenplay, not a coroner’s report.
The distinction mattered to at least one critic. Reviewing the film for Salon, Andrew O’Hehir objected to its central premise: that the innocent women accused and executed in the Salem witch trials “actually were witches, who slaughtered children and pledged their love to Satan and everything!” Anyone reading Bathsheba Sherman’s story as history should keep that objection in mind. A nineteenth century woman gossiped about by her neighbors is a common enough figure in New England records. A confessed child-killer is not, and no such record has been produced.
What The Conjuring Actually Filmed, and Where
James Wan’s The Conjuring opened in the United States and Canada on July 19, 2013, and took more than $319 million worldwide against a $20 million budget. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga play Ed and Lorraine Warren, the paranormal investigators and authors whose case reports also fed the Amityville story. In the film, Roger and Carolyn Perron move into a farmhouse in Harrisville, Rhode Island, in 1971 with five daughters, Andrea, Nancy, Christine, Cindy and April; every clock in the house stops at 3:07 a.m., Carolyn wakes with new bruises each morning, and the family dog is found dead in the yard.
Two production facts are useful correctives for anyone planning a pilgrimage. First, the story was deliberately reframed: screenwriters Chad and Carey W. Hayes “changed the story’s point of view from the Perron family to the Warrens’,” so the film you remember is structured as a Warren case file rather than as the Perrons’ account. Second, none of it was shot at the farmhouse. Principal photography ran for 38 days at EUE/Screen Gems Studios and other locations in and around Wilmington, North Carolina. The building on screen is not the building in Burrillville.
The marketing leaned hard the other way. The campaign promoted the film heavily as “based on a true story,” and in the weeks before release trailers and television spots began featuring the real-life Perron family. The film spawned an entire universe of sequels and spin-offs, from The Conjuring 2 in 2016 through The Conjuring: Last Rites in 2025, and every one of them sent more attention back toward one rural Rhode Island address.
The Sutcliffe Lawsuit and the Cost of a Famous Address
The clearest evidence of what fame did to this property is not paranormal at all. Norma Sutcliffe and Gerald Helfrich, who owned the house before the Heinzens, sued James Wan, Warner Bros. and other producers in 2015, arguing that their property was being vandalized constantly as a consequence of the film. Documents obtained by Entertainment Weekly recorded repeated invasions of the property and numerous objects affiliated with satanic cults found on it. The filing noted that the couple had bought the house in 1987 and lived there “in peace” until 2012. They sought unspecified damages; Warner Bros. declined to comment, and the case was dismissed in December 2017.
Twenty-five quiet years, then a film, then enough trespass to justify a federal complaint. That sequence is the single most verifiable thing in the whole story.
The Heinzen Years and the $1.2 Million Listing
Jennifer and Cory Heinzen, both drawn to the paranormal, bought the farmhouse in 2019 and made no secret of why. They have reported knocks with no source, footsteps that cannot be traced to anyone in the building, and voices heard in empty rooms, the same categories of experience the Perrons described decades earlier. In 2021 the couple put the property on the market at $1.2 million, an asking price that reflects the movie poster more than the acreage.
Reported Phenomena at the Perron Farmhouse
Drawing on the accounts given by the Perron family and by later owners, the recurring reports are:
- Odors with no identifiable source
- Beds shaking or moving at night
- The sensation of a presence in occupied rooms
- Knocking and rapping sounds
- Footsteps that cannot be matched to anyone present
- Voices heard when the house is empty
- Claims of physical harm and of possession, centered on Carolyn Perron
These are reported experiences. No investigation at this house has produced verified evidence of a haunting, and the most dramatic elements of the story, the possession and the exorcism, exist in book form and in a screenplay rather than in any independent record.
Visiting Burrillville Without Ending Up in Court
This is a private home on private land. It is not a museum, a park, or a roadside attraction, and the litigation history makes clear that the previous owners spent years dealing with people who treated it as one. Do not drive up the driveway, do not walk the fields, and do not leave objects on the property. Whatever access exists at any given time is at the owners’ discretion and should be arranged directly and legally, never by turning up unannounced.
If the film is what brought you here, remember that the farmhouse you saw on screen was a set in North Carolina. The house in Burrillville is a 290-year-old building where people live. Ghost hunting can be dangerous, and you should never trespass on property that is not yours or enter restricted areas without permission.
Sources
- The Conjuring (15)
- The Conjuring (2013)
- The 'true' story behind 'The Conjuring'
- What's In A Title? 'The Conjuring' Producer And New Line In Dispute Over TV Rights
- James Wan The Conjuring a Remake?
- Wikipedia: The Conjuring
Address: 1677 Round Top Road
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is The Perron House located?
The Perron House is located at 1677 Round Top Road.
Can you visit The Perron House?
The Perron House is on private property and best viewed from a distance. Always follow posted rules and respect private property.
Reader sightings
Nobody has reported anything here yet. If you have been, you would be the first.
Report your own visit to The Perron House in Burrillville: Behind The Conjuring
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