Reviewed by Josh N · Updated October 6, 2026 · How we verify
Reported Phenomena
- Apparitions
- Disembodied voices
- Objects moving
- Faces in photographs
- Ghostly cook
- Wailing sounds
Reported by visitors & local legend. Stories, not verified claims.
Set back behind trees on Arthur Kill Road in Charleston, on the southwestern tip of Staten Island, the Kreischer Mansion is the last survivor of a pair of matching Victorian houses built for the sons of a New York brick baron. One brother’s house is gone. The other brother died of a gunshot wound in 1894, and the stories about this house have been accumulating ever since, picking up a mob killing along the way.
It is a genuinely handsome building: a large, asymmetrically massed two and a half story wood-frame house in the American Queen Anne style, with spacious verandas, gables trimmed in jigsaw bargeboards, decorative railings, posts and brackets, tall chimneys, and a corner tower. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982 and designated a New York City Landmark in 1968. None of which explains why ghost hunters keep asking to get inside.
Balthasar Kreischer and the Town That Carried His Name
Balthasar Kreischer was a German immigrant who built a fortune manufacturing brick from the clay beds of southern Staten Island. The company town that grew around his works was called Kreischerville, later renamed Charleston. Around 1885 he had two mansions built, one for each of two sons. The surviving house belonged to Edward Kreischer; the other belonged to his brother Charles and no longer stands.
That detail matters to the folklore. Twin houses on a hill above a brickyard, one of them erased, is exactly the kind of fact that legend grows on. The architecture did the rest. A corner tower and a wraparound veranda photograph as haunted whether or not anything is happening inside.
June 8, 1894: The Death of Edward Kreischer
On June 8, 1894, Edward B. Kreischer died of a gunshot wound to the right temple near his place of business. The death was recorded as a suicide. That it was a suicide has never been universally accepted, and murder remains an ongoing theory among people who have studied the case.
The alternative version, and it should be read as rumor rather than record, holds that Edward’s wife was having an affair with a doctor, that Edward found out, and that the pair were poisoning him with the doctor’s help. There is no verified evidence for this. It circulates because it is a better story, and because an unexplained gunshot in a wealthy family invites one.
What is documented is that the claims of haunting began after Edward’s death. His ghost is the foundational figure in the mansion’s supernatural reputation, and the other local stories about violence on the property were layered on top of it over the following century.
What People Say Happens Inside the Kreischer Mansion
These are reported experiences from caretakers, visitors, and invited investigators, not verified events. No evidence establishes that the house is haunted. What follows is simply what gets repeated:
- Apparitions, sometimes identified by tellers as Edward’s widow, Frieda.
- Disembodied voices and wailing in the halls.
- Objects reported moving on their own.
- Faces said to appear in photographs taken inside the house.
- A ghostly cook, said to linger in the kitchen, which is among the most frequently retold of the house’s stories.
Worth noting that the cook has no documented counterpart in the historical record, and the identification of an apparition as a specific named woman is an interpretation applied after the fact by witnesses who already knew the family’s history. That is how most house hauntings work: the story supplies the cast, and experiences get sorted into it.
The 2005 Killing of Robert McKelvey
The mansion’s darkest confirmed chapter is recent and has nothing to do with ghosts. In 1998 the property was bought by Isaac Yomtovian with the intention of restoring it and eventually selling it. In 2008, the house’s then caretaker, Joseph “Joe Black” Young, was revealed to be a hitman for the Bonanno crime family, serving under Bonanno soldier Gino Galestro. Young was convicted of the murder of rival mob associate Robert McKelvey, committed three years earlier on the property.
That is a documented homicide inside a house already carrying a century of ghost stories. For visitors weighing the place up, it is the part of the history that deserves the most sober treatment, because it involved a real victim within living memory.
Boardwalk Empire, Paranormal Lockdown, and the Screen Version
The combination of intact Victorian architecture and violent history has made the house attractive to production crews. Its supernatural reputation led to its use as a filming location on television, including Boardwalk Empire. Paranormal programming has also come calling, with an investigation for Paranormal Lockdown in which the team spent 72 hours inside.
Visiting the Kreischer Mansion, and Why You Mostly Cannot
This is private property. The Kreischer Mansion has never operated as a regular tour attraction, and access has generally been limited to invited paranormal groups and media crews.
Its situation changed in 2024, when the house was sold to Eric Bischoff and Julia Mackie, who restored it. The restoration project received $445,000 in state funding. Public funding does not create public access, and anyone planning a trip should treat the grounds as off-limits and view the house from the road. Do not trespass, do not enter outbuildings, and do not assume that a camera crew getting inside last year means anyone can.
Sources
- With a Bullet in His Skull
- American Murder Houses: A Coast-To-Coast Tour of the Most Notorious Houses of Homicide
- Killmeyer's and the Kreischer Mansion: Meat and Murder in Staten Island
- National Register of Historic Places Registration: New York SP Kreischer House (Archives (official))
- Grisly Mob Killing at S.I. Mansion Is Detailed (The New York Times)
- Wikipedia: Kreischer House
Address: 4500 Arthur Kill Road
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is The Haunted History Of The Kreischer Mansion located?
The Haunted History Of The Kreischer Mansion is located at 4500 Arthur Kill Road.
Can you visit The Haunted History Of The Kreischer Mansion?
The Haunted History Of The Kreischer Mansion 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 Brick Fortune to Mob Hit: The Kreischer Mansion, Staten Island
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