As you approach the infamous corner, you
see it – a hulking red and green monster
in the dark pool of a burnt out streetlight,
stark against the indigo of the sultry night
sky.
You gape in awed silence and
your mind reels, full of tales of incest, murder,
cannibalism, deformed dwarves, and two elderly
sisters with a history so horrible even Lizzie
Borden would sit up and take note!
But wait! What’s that?
There, in the ground-level basement window?
(And what house in New Orleans HAS a basement
anyway??)\
Is that EYES? Glowing red EYES?
Could that be jagged TEETH slavering in a
maniacal, leering grin???
You and your friends scream,
altogether at once, as the hapless driver floors
it and peels away into the night, creating another
life-long memory of a visit to The House on
Milne!!!!!
Deep in a garden overgrown with
weeds and bamboo, suffocating under ivy whose
tendrils had, over the years, twisted like searching
fingers into the brick and mortar of its crumbling
antique façade, sat the house that thrilled
and chilled generations of New Orleans teens.
Nobody knew a lot about it,
a lot of people knew a little, and what was
considered fact was probably just the early
makings of a good urban legend. Or, was it?
The infamous Milne House sat at the corner
of Milne and Porteus streets in the Lakeview
area of New Orleans. It entered the litany
of teen fright sites early in the 1960’s
and held its own as a true chiller well into
the 1980’s around which time it was
finally torn down.
In it’s heyday, it creeped
out more than its share of New Orleans teens
who usually encountered it initially on a dare
soon after obtaining their first official driver’s
license. Cars with a couple of curious youths,
or jam-packed with loudmouths on a “double
dare” night of cruising – all fell
silent in the grim, dank shadow of the hulking
brick house and the mystery of its inhabitants.
The rumors that circulated at the height
of the Milne hysteria read like a script from
“The X-Files”: The house was inhabited
by two sisters and a brother, elderly at the
time but who, in their youth, themselves the
product of in-breeding, were involved in an
incestuous “ménage a trois.”
These liaisons had produced a veritable colony
of deformed, in-bred dwarves, half-humans,
really, whom the family kept locked in the
basement – even having a basement was
anomalous in this city so far below sea level
and this only added to the mystique!
These in-bred, deformed and increasingly
evil-natured dwarves would escape through
the basement windows (on a fairly regular
basis, according to legend) and would terrorize
the adjoining neighborhoods, rummaging through
garbage, preying on unwary pets, and occasionally
attacking people who ought to know better
than to be out at night anywhere near the
house on Milne! Other rumors told of how the
sisters had hacked up their brother in an
argument and had fed him to their offspring,
which gave the nightmare creatures their taste
for blood.
Years of reports from spooked
thrill-seekers detailed the horrors of Milne:
teens and even adults would swear to seeing
ghastly red eyes peering out at them through
the slimy green of the basement windows or would
be equally terrorized at the sight of the gnarled
hand of one of the old ladies pulling back the
lace curtain of a window and peering out with
an angry, yellow eye! (Sometimes the hand held
a metal meat cleaver, but frightened onlookers
never stayed long enough to confirm that one!)
The brave, or foolish depending on your outlook,
would actually get out of their vehicles at
the corner for a closer look; those more brave
actually tramped onto the lawn and into the
dense, jungle-like yard, more often than not
coming back with a chilling scream and jumping
into the car as it sped away.
The very bravest, it was said, were those
who went right up to the basement windows
and wiped away the green mold for a look inside.
But you didn’t want to do that. No way.
Everyone knew about the guy who did that in
broad daylight, even, and went completely
crazy! He was shipped away to the asylum in
Mandeville and never regained his senses,
such was the horror he had witnessed …
Stories of encounters like these kept the
Milne House at the top of the list of local
Creep Out destinations in a city with more
than its share. Ultimately, the house fell
into complete disrepair and was finally torn
down.
But the tales continued –
the vacant land was haunted, the dwarves had
moved into drains and under the houses of unsuspecting
neighbors, corpses had been uncovered where
the basement had once been, evidence of Satanic
rituals had been found but hushed up …
The site continued to be a popular drive-by
for many years to come.
* * * * *
If you are a local New Orleanian
who was thrilled and chilled by the mysterious
Milne House, Haunted New Orleans Tours would
like to hear from you! If you have a true-life
horror experience or amusing anecdote that
involves the Milne House, or just want to
share information about how the location became
such a legendary haunted hotspot, please drop
us a line here at Haunted New Orleans Tours!
In the next several weeks, we will compile
your submissions and share them with our readers!
So come on and take a thrilling
trip down a dark little turn in Memory Lane:
Tell us your Milne Tales!
