The True Story of ‘The Watcher’ House
Ryan Murphy’s hair-raising psychological thriller The Watcher has officially hit Netflix, and bingers everywhere are doing a double check on their door locks at night. The seven-part series, which followed Reeves Wiedeman’s viral 2018 article for New York magazine, chronicles the events that occurred after Derek and Maria Broaddus (in the show, Dean and Nora Brannock) moved into their stately six-bedroom residence in the New Jersey suburbs in 2014.
The new homeowners—played by Bobby Cannavale and Naomi Watts in the series—get an anonymous letter from someone who claims to be “the Watcher” of the house who had been put in charge of “waiting for its second coming” and referring to the children as “young blood.” More letters come. And as the Broadduses become increasingly unhinged, the queasy unfolding of the story raises far more questions than it answers. And the eeriest part? The series is based on an actual cold case. While the show was filmed in New York’s Westchester County, the real house that inspired this story is still standing. Here’s what we know about it.
Where is the Watcher house located?
The house is located at 657 Boulevard (thus, its nickname) in Westfield, New Jersey, an idyllic upscale suburban town about an hour’s drive from Manhattan. Having been compared with the fictional family-friendly town of Mayberry on The Andy Griffith Show, it was ranked the 30th-safest town in America in 2014 by NeighborhoodScout. Westfield is best known for its vibrant downtown and magnificent historical homes, which offer fodder for inventive folklore (it was the hometown of Charles Addams, the creator of the Addams Family), as well as some more grisly occurrences (including the infamous 1971 John List murders, which the series alludes to). Now, Westfield is back on the true-crime map.
What is the real house’s architectural style?
While the series was filmed at another New York home that was much more grand (and included a pool), the real 657 Boulevard—built in 1905 rather than 1921 as the series denotes—is an exquisite example of Gilded Age wealth in 20th-century America. The Westfield Historic Preservation Society has labeled the house a Shingle Style design, an American style that evolved from the Queen Anne style and showed renewed interest in the shingled homes of New England. The house’s most prominent features are the uniform sheathing of wood shingles, grouped windows, a front porch with Ionic columns, and the front-facing, center gambrel roofline, a popular feature in American architecture at the turn of the century. “Many of Westfield’s Shingle Style houses retain their wood shingle siding but most have been repainted in hues of green, gray, or yellow,” the Preservation Society notes.
Who were the house’s previous owners?
The house’s original owner was Harry Lincoln Russell, a real estate agent and early property developer in Westfield who purchased the house in 1905, according to House Beautiful. In 1914, the Davies family purchased 657 Boulevard for $1 (a trend of property transfer). William H. Davies was a one-term mayor of Westfield while living in the house, and he died there in 1947 (four years after his wife). The house went on to Davies’s son and daughter-in-law, Frances Ernest Davies, who sold it to Dillard and Mary Bird in 1951, again for a reported $1. The house sold three more times, to Lawerence and Mary Holmes Shaffer (their son reported to House Beautiful that the couple paid about $23,000 for the home), then to Seth and Floy Bakes, and in 1990 to John and Andrea Woods for $370,000.
Now here’s where things start to get strange. The Woods couple received a letter from “the Watcher” thanking them for taking care of the house. According to the Cut, the couple, both retired scientists, told the Broadduses that they remembered the letter they received as more strange than threatening. In 2014, the Broadduses closed on the house for $1,355,657, according to Zillow. Less than a year after the purchase, the Broadduses decided to sell 657 Boulevard, listing it at $1.495 million to reflect renovation work they had done. Prospective buyers were scared off by the letters, so they lowered their asking price to $1.395 million, and a few months later, the price dropped to $1.25 million. After filing a civil lawsuit against the Woodses (who later returned with a countersuit claim of defamation), the house was taken off the market as the saga made national news. In 2017, Derek and Maria rented 657 Boulevard to a couple with adult children and several large dogs who seemed to be unafraid of “the Watcher.” And finally, in 2019, the Broaddusses, who were living in another undisclosed home in the area, sold 657 Boulevard.
Who owns 657 Boulevard now?
The house was sold to the brave Andrew and Allison Carr for $959,000 (according to public records) at a loss of $400,000 to the Broadduses. “The Watcher,” who still hasn’t been identified, doesn’t seem to have reached out to the current owners yet, though the same can’t be said for nosy sightseers. The case remains unsolved—at least for now.
You Might Also Like
