Newport’s Beloved ‘Dark Shadows’ Mansion Has a New Owner

The Dark Shadows mansion, which most "normal" people know as Seaview Terrace, has a new owner. According to Page Six, it's renowned artist Hunt Slonem.

I was a dopey kid who spent his wonder years racing home from grade school to watch Barnabas Collins and all of the other ghouls on the ABC gothic soap opera Dark Shadows. But didn't everyone?

Barnabas was a rock star in New Bedford in those days.

READ MORE: New Bedford Kids Rushed Home to Watch Dark Shadows

From 1966 to 1971, Dark Shadows was our obsession. We collected all sorts of Dark Shadows memorabilia, from posters, trading cards, magazines, a Barnabas Collins replica ring, and plastic vampire teeth, to name a few.

Collinwood, the mythical Collins family mansion on the rocky cliffs of Maine where Barnabas and company kept court, was (is) actually closer than we thought. It was in Newport, Rhode Island, all along – or at least the mansion used to depict Collinwood on television.

Seaview Terrace, the fifth largest mansion in Newport, is clearly visible from the famous Cliff Walk. I know, because we spied the mansion many times when we could convince our parents to take us there again.

Nancy Hall reported in October that, when Seaview Terrace first hit the market last year for $28.5 million, it was allegedly among the "most haunted" mansions in all of Rhode Island.

READ MORE: Rhode Island's Most Haunted Mansion Lists for $28.5 Million

Seaview Terrace, more than 100 years old, built as a private residence, was used as officers' quarters during World War II and as a girls-only school before reverting to a private residence again.

The mansion boasts 29 bedrooms and 18 bathrooms.

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From pictures I've seen of the interior (see below), Seaview Terrace looks nothing like Collinwood on the inside. The mansion has three tennis courts. Can you just picture Barnabas and Julia Hoffman playing tennis? Yikes!

READ MORE: Dartmouth's Dark Shadows Cemetery: Real or Urban Legend?

Page Six says Slonem is into communicating with spirits, so he ought to have a ball at Collinwood – er, I mean Seaview Terrace.