The hill above Junee, New South Wales, rises gently from the flat agricultural town, topped by a double-storey Victorian manor with wide verandas and iron lacework that Christopher William Crawley built in 1885. From a distance it looks prosperous and settled. It is known across Australia as the country’s most haunted house.
When Crawley died, his widow withdrew—not for a period of mourning, but for decades. She left the homestead only on rare occasions for church, spending her remaining years seated on the upper veranda, watching the town below without descending to it. She outlived her husband by twenty-three years and died in 1933. The house left the family in 1948 and passed to caretakers, one of whom—Jack Simpson—was shot and killed on the front porch in 1960. The man who shot him had, by accounts of the time, become disturbed by repeated viewings of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, released that same year.
The Ryan family purchased the property in 1963 when it had fallen into serious disrepair and restored it as a tourist attraction and private residence. The upper veranda generates the most consistent accounts: a presence near the chair where Mrs. Crawley sat, a weight in the air on the upper level distinct from the ground floor. The chapel produces its own reports at night. The coach house is considered among the most active areas by investigators. Australian and international television programs have filmed there for decades, and the accumulated accounts from independent visitors continue to draw people to the hill above Junee.
Story Source: TV episode titled “Silver Shadow” — Ghost Hunters International (Syfy, 2010)
Address: 1 Homestead Lane, Junee, NSW 2663, Australia
Accessibility Rating: No Public Access — Private property, active restricted site, or location no longer physically accessible to visitors.
Google Map
What Others Have Experienced
Monte Cristo Homestead closed permanently to the public in early 2025 following the death of long-time owner Olive Ryan in November 2024. The property was listed for sale on a walk-in, walk-out basis with every antique and artifact remaining as left during the final ghost tour, ending over 50 years of public visits. For adventure travelers, the homestead is no longer accessible.
— from Junee Independent
Prior to its 2025 closure, visitors who stayed overnight at Monte Cristo described it as one of the few genuinely inhabited haunted destinations in Australia — not a preserved museum but a home still actively lived in and cared for, which gave the paranormal experiences reported there a domestic intimacy absent from more institutionalized dark tourism sites. The Ryan family’s personal relationship with the building’s ghosts was communicated directly to guests, which visitors described as unusually affecting.
— from HerCanberra
During its years of operation, overnight guests consistently reported being woken between 2 and 4am by sounds from the ground floor — particularly from the caretaker’s cottage, associated with the chained and screaming Harold — and several described physical sensations including a hand on the shoulder in empty rooms. The site attracted tens of thousands of visitors annually since opening in 1971 and was featured repeatedly on Australian paranormal television programs.
— from Earth Bound Guides
Mrs. Elizabeth Crawley — who after her husband’s death left the homestead only twice in 23 years, covering all the mirrors and refusing visitors — is the most frequently reported apparition. Previous visitors described seeing a silver-haired woman in a lace dress observing them from corridors and doorways, a description consistent enough across unrelated accounts spanning decades to be among Australia’s most documented claimed hauntings.
— from The Land
