Hudson Riverfront Condo Development on Former Estate Land
Plum Point Road, New Windsor, NY 12553
Age
No public access; private residential community
Cost
Free
Private residential community. No public access. The adjacent Kowawese Unique Area (Plum Point Park) on the Hudson River shoreline is open to the public.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Paved private community drives; Plum Point Park has waterfront paths.
Equipment
Photos OK
Plum Point is a Hudson River shoreline area in the Town of New Windsor, immediately south of the City of Newburgh in Orange County, New York. The shoreline takes its name from the small plum trees that historically grew along the riverbank.
The current Plum Point on Hudson condominium community was developed in phases beginning in 1978, with additional construction through the 1980s and 1990s. The site previously held a large 19th-century mansion with detached servants' quarters that was, according to Shadowlands-era community submissions corroborated by visitor reports on the site, used for portions of its history as a home for wayward girls and later an orphanage. Independent historical-society or newspaper corroboration of the orphanage history is limited but the basic claim is consistent with the period.
A second public-access component of the area, the Kowawese Unique Area (also known as Plum Point Park), opened to the public in the fall of 1996. The park covers a small area of Hudson River shoreline and is operated as a state, county, and town joint property. The park is open to the public; the condominium community is not.
Note: The earlier Shadowlands narrative attributing a murdered-boy-buried-in-the-walls scenario to the site is explicitly retracted in the Shadowlands' own later editorial update as inaccurate folklore. Hauntbound carries the retraction rather than the original claim.
Sources
Plum Point's legend history is unusual because the most-circulated version of it was publicly retracted by the original Shadowlands site in October 2005. The retracted version claimed a Catholic boys' school on the site, the murder of a student by a nun, the concealment of his body in a wall during construction, and a curse-like pattern of construction accidents during attempts to convert the building into apartments. That version is not supported by historical records and is explicitly corrected in the source listing.
The replacement description, drawn from a local visitor, identifies the building as a 19th-century estate that became a home for wayward girls and later an orphanage. The visitor noted that the molestation rumor in the legend may have a historical basis tied to this period but that the buried-in-walls element is unsupported by any research the visitor had been able to find. Hauntbound carries this as the legend's known limit: a probable orphanage history, possible historical mistreatment of children housed there, and a body of subsequent folklore that grew well beyond what the documented record supports.
The current condominium community is private and is not appropriate for paranormal investigation or unannounced visits. The site's lore is best treated as a Hudson Valley folklore footnote rather than a destination. The adjacent Kowawese Unique Area waterfront park is open for public visits and offers Hudson River views without intruding on the private community.
The Plum Point on Hudson condominium community is private property and not open to the public. The adjacent Kowawese Unique Area (Plum Point Park), opened in 1996 directly on the Hudson River shoreline, is open to visitors and offers views of the property's former estate grounds.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Amityville, NY
The address 112 Ocean Avenue, Amityville, was the original number of the Dutch Colonial home where the DeFeo family was murdered on November 13, 1974, and where the Lutz family briefly lived in late 1975 and early 1976. The street address was renumbered to 108 Ocean Avenue in 1977 after the publication of Jay Anson's The Amityville Horror brought sustained tourist traffic to the property. The house itself was not relocated.
Amityville, NY
On November 13, 1974, Ronald DeFeo Jr. shot and killed his parents and four siblings as they slept in the Dutch Colonial home at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, New York. The Lutz family purchased the property in December 1975 and departed after 28 days, generating the claims that became Jay Anson's 1977 book The Amityville Horror and a long-running film franchise.
Waterville, NY
The Sanger Mansion, also called Sangerfield House, is a 52-room stone manor built in 1906 by Colonel William Carey Sanger Sr. on West Hill above Waterville, New York. The grounds were laid out by the Olmsted firm. The house served as a Stigmatine monastery from 1960 to 1970 before returning to private ownership.