What Happened to the House from The Watcher?
The latest true-crime fictionalization out of Netflix will make you double-check whether your doors are locked and your curtains are drawn. The Watcher, Ryan Murphy's latest whodunit, follows a family as they discover the sinister force behind their newly purchased slice of the American Dream. Through a lot of suspects and a lot of plot holes, the series has ensnared mystery fans who were first ensnared by the true story of 657 Boulevard.
Based on a 2018 New York Magazine story, the limited series takes several liberties with real-life events that unfolded after the new residents of a New Jersey home began receiving creepy anonymous letters from a stalker called "The Watcher." However sensational as it seems, the Watcher and the house he watched are both real.
Read on for what we know about the home and what happened to it after the events of the series.
Where is 657 Boulevard located?
The Watcher house is a real home at 657 Boulevard in Westfield, New Jersey, with the Netflix series using both the real address and city name. (You can even check it out on Google Maps). It's a shingle-style home, per the Westfield Historic Preservation Society, was built in 1905, and had six bedrooms. Though it is lovely, the real 657 Boulevard is much less grand than the series' stand-in house. (For anyone interested in that sprawling home, the show was filmed in Westchester County, New York.)
What happened with 657 Boulevard in real life?
The Watcher follows the basics of the real-life events: In 2014, a family named the Broadduses bought the Westfield, New Jersey, home for $1.3 million, and soon after began receiving mysterious letters signed by "The Watcher." The letters were just as creepy as depicted in the series, with details of the families' activities and claims that the writer's mission to watch the house was passed down for generations. They also mentioned the couple Derek and Maria's three children.
Do you need to fill the house with the young blood I requested? Better for me. Was your old house too small for the growing family? Or was it greed to bring me your children? Once I know their names I will call to them and draw them too [sic] me.
Though the Broadduses had begun renovating the house, they never ended up moving in due to fear for their children's safety. After six months of letting the house sit vacant, the couple decided to put the house on the market. They insisted on providing a partial disclosure about the letters to potential buyers, which sunk most sales, and the story eventually reached the press. They even considered selling the house to a developer as a tear-down, but they didn't get permission from the local council. As of the NY Mag article's publication in 2018, they hadn't found a buyer, and were renting out the property.
Was 657 Boulevard ever sold?
Derek and Maria Broaddus finally found a buyer for the infamous house in 2019, when a young couple purchased 657 Boulevard for around $959,000. The Broadduses paid $1.3 million for the house in 2014, so they took a $400,000 hit (but peace of mind is priceless).
The real estate agent who sold the home told Entertainment Weekly that despite the home's true-crime infamy, there was "a lot of interest in the house" from potential buyers. However, anyone who wanted to put an offer on the house had to look at the Watcher case evidence before they could enter a contract. He recalled that one man backed out after seeing the full case, but the eventual owners reportedly haven't had any issues with anonymous letters during their time in the home.
You Might Also Like
