A Victorian mansion in northern Ohio has long been the subject of many ghost stories: tales of spirits that scratch, doors that slam and pianos that play on their own.
Now, the allegedly haunted Bihl Manor in Fremont is getting a makeover.
HGTV’s new show “A Very Haunted Renovation,” hosted by Anna Camp, is challenging daring designers to bring the historic home’s interior back from the dead.
It comes with a catch: Contestants also had to live in the Ohio manor for a month, while completing design challenges.
HGTV will announce the winner later this month, when the show’s final episode airs on Oct. 20. The grand prize is $50,000.
Bihl Manor owner Karlo Zuzic said the designers also likely walked away with some paranormal encounters, too. He joined the Ohio Newsroom to share what the renovation experience was like.
This interview has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
On realizing he had bought a haunted house
ZUZIC: The first day I got the keys, I went through the front door, all excited. It was like 2 p.m. and I heard somebody walk around upstairs. You could definitely tell it was footsteps. I started yelling up the stairs and nobody would answer. So I kind of crept my way up there and there was nobody in the house. And I was like, ‘Well, that was kind of weird.’
And then it was about three, four weeks of owning the house. I was cutting grass and I came through the door. As I open the front door, there's a boy standing on the landing. He never looked at me. He was looking down and he had red hair, black suit and white shirt. And then he just vanished. I'm like, ‘Hold on. There's something more to this house.’ Because all I was ever told is that it was a bed and breakfast.
On the ‘haunted’ history of the home
ZUZIC: Jerome Bihl built the house in 1898. And I found out there was one death in the home with them and they had a stillborn there. Then in 1922, the Wolfe family purchased the home. They lived there from 1922 to 1966. I found four known deaths with them there. And then, when it was an orphanage and group home, a historian told me a boy either had committed suicide or had an accidental death there. He also said probably more than one child had passed away there because they did house sick children.
But you can also remember the energy that was brought in. You had boys that were dropped off, they had nowhere to go. So you had all those emotions: the happy emotions, the sad emotions, depression, anger — all of this is bottled up in this house. You don't necessarily have to die in a house to haunt a house.
On the ghosts’ reaction to renovations
ZUZIC: The theory is, in the paranormal field, that renovations do amp up paranormal activity, because you're actually going in and changing the house. I was a little worried about that, in the beginning, because I'm thinking ‘Could it get worse?’, things like that. But you have to do it anyway because the house needed it.
I know a lot of the workers that were working on the house were getting some crazy experiences. They've seen the shadow figures, things would fall and stuff like that. So I think during the renovation it was probably amped up a little bit more because the spirits are probably like, ‘Uh-oh, things are changing.’
On resurrecting a historic home from the dead
ZUZIC: The designers, they actually went towards that Victorian old 1800s look. They kind of brought it back to life. They gave it a meaning. By doing it, you're bringing back history in a different way. The house needed it and thank God they came through and they did it for me.
It's not done yet, but they did put me ahead a little bit, so I was really excited about that. Doing the show, I was nervous about it because you just don't know what they're going to do, but I took a chance on it and I figured ‘Why not?’ I got nothing to lose.
HGTV's “A Very Haunted Renovation” airs Tuesday evenings; it will continue chronicling the progress on Bihl Manor until the season finale on Oct. 20.
