Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice… Beetlej…
For those fans of the movie “Beetlejuice,” you know perfectly well why I didn’t finish that thought, for to say the name three times is the only way you can call the filthy bio-exorcist into our world!
Or so we thought. It turns out, there may be one more way to call Beetlejuice (whoops!) back from wherever he’s been hiding for the past 25 years, and that is to release a sequel.
Yes, it’s true. The Internet is abuzz with rumors that Tim Burton, Wynona Rider, and Michael Keaton will rejoin forces in the near future to create a sequel to the ghostly classic.
Sure, there’s no release date, and okay, maybe it hasn’t even gone into production yet; but hey, at least it is being discussed, and that is reason enough for me to put on my striped Beetlejuice pajamas and do a happy dance—and, of course, re-visit the home featured in the movie for a celebratory property evaluation.
How much would the recently deceased homeowners, the Maitlands’, home cost? Less than an arm and a leg—so don’t go pulling them off just yet. It turns out, Barbara and Adams’s home would only set you back $344,400 bones—about three times less than another haunted property, “The Shining’s” Overlook Hotel. This price doesn’t include the ghosts themselves, which as we learn in the movie, “people will pay big money for.” But more on that in a moment; first, let’s take a look at how we did it.
Keeping It Simple
Just as the Maitlands’ caseworker, Juno, advised them to “start simply” (after they’d torn their faces off in an attempt to scare their home’s new nightmarish residents, of course), I decided to stick to what I know, in order to find this home’s value. Just like Movoto Real Estate’s other fictional evaluations, I needed three things:
- The location
- The size
- Comparable properties
After a bit of digging, re-watching the movie, and playing “The Banana Boat Song (Day-O)” on loop, I was able to unearth the property’s value. So grab your “Book for the Recently Deceased” (not diseased), and maybe some $300 sheets, because we’re heading to the Maitlands’ house, and in case you didn’t know, this place is haunted.
Where Is This Haunted House?
The Maitlands’ home is located in the town of Winter River, Connecticut–a beautiful, quaint, old town among the rolling hills of Connecticut; and as Charles Deetz’s boss points out, “Winter River, Connecticut is, if you’ll forgive me, nowhere!” Which is absolutely true; it is completely fictional. So we are going to use the film’s shooting location of East Corinth, Vermont instead.
I’ll make no bones about it, the location was easier to sniff out than Beetlejuice on a hot day; but the next part of our evaluation took something truly horrid—math.
How Big Is It?
In order to find the size of the Maitlands’ home, I relied on photos from the movie and this excellentvideo touring the outside of a to-scale model of the home (thanks, Tim Burton fans).
Using the double front door as a unit of measurement, the average width of which is approximately five feet, I counted that the first floor of the house is approximately 40 feet by 40 feet—so, 1,600 square feet.
The old house itself is sort of a hodgepodge of rooms and levels—perhaps one reason Delia, the home’s new and absolutely vile owner, wanted to take some gasoline and a blowtorch to it. On the whole, though, it looks as though the second floor is roughly half the size of the first floor, making it 800 square feet.
Which brings us to the attic. Ordinarily, in finding the square footage of a house, you wouldn’t count an unfinished attic. Since this attic houses our two friendly ghosts, however, and is the predominant location for most of the movie, I think it deserves to be added, don’t you? It is about 1/4 the size of the first floor—400 square feet.
This gives our home a total of 2,800 square feet. Of course, this is before Delia Deetz sinks her designer’s claws into the place and ruins—or, rather, modifies it. But we are just going to look at the original home’s design, just as Adam and Barbara would have wanted it.
What Is Like The Maitlands’ Home?
The last step in divining this haunted home’s price tag was to find comparable properties in the area. Before the Deetz family arrived and killed its charm, the Maitlands’ home was quaint, cozy, and homey—or as Delia put it, rather like “a giant ant farm.” It had two fireplaces—one in the living room, one in the bedroom–at least two bedrooms, a study, a separate dining room, a small kitchen, and, of course, an attic.
I found eight property listings in the East Corinth, VT area with similar features and averaged their prices per square foot together. This came out to be a solid $123 per square foot.
How Much For That Ghost In The Window?
Well, we’ll get to that in a moment, but for now, let’s look at how much the house itself would cost. With a price per square foot of $123 and the size of 2,800 square feet, the original Maitland home from “Beetlejuice” would only cost you $344,400—which means, with inflation, the Deetz family probably paid about $174,000 for it in 1988.
Of course, this price doesn’t come with a haunting; and as fans learn in the movie, ghosts can mean big bucks. After the deceased Barbara and Adam possess the Deetz’s dinner party for a forced group sing-a-long, the guests are delighted—much to the Maitlands’ chagrin. In the post-dinner party conversation, it is mentioned that, “The Enquirer is offering $50,000 for proof of life after death,” and Charles even has ideas of turning the home into the first supernatural amusement park.
How much would a haunting add to the price tag? I guess it would depend on your buyer. According a recent survey, 63 percent of Americans would consider buying a haunted house—for a discount. Then there are your buyers like Lydia Deetz; buyers who themselves are “strange and unusual,” and would most likely throw in some extra cash for the company of ghosts.
Unfortunately, I can’t give you an exact quote on the cost of two apparitions—especially ones as nice as the Maitlands. Who knows, perhaps we’ll find out in the sequel?