HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
Two restored 19th-century mansions in Utica where the Landmarks Society runs haunted tours
1 & 3 Rutger Park, Utica, NY 13501
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Tour pricing varies by program; the Landmarks Society lists Walks & Talks and seasonal mansion tours on its events page. Contact the society to confirm dates and fees.
Access
Limited Access
Historic mansions with original staircases, uneven floors, and partially restored interiors.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1830 · Alexander Jackson Davis Architecture · Philip Hooker Architecture · Utica Gilded Age Residential District
Rutger Park developed in the first half of the 19th century as Utica's most prestigious residential address, lined with villas built for the merchants and industrialists who profited from the Erie Canal economy. The oldest of the surviving houses, 3 Rutger Park, was completed in 1830 from a design by Philip Hooker, the Albany architect responsible for several of the period's most important public buildings in upstate New York. It later passed through the Miller, Conkling, and Kernan families, names tied to Utica's legal and political establishment.
The house at 1 Rutger Park was built in 1854 for John Munn, a banker who had made his fortune in Mississippi before returning to Utica. Munn commissioned Alexander Jackson Davis, one of the leading American architects of the mid-19th century and a central figure in the Italian Villa and Gothic Revival movements. The result, an asymmetrical towered villa, became known locally as Munn's Castle. Munn's household and his entertaining drew comment in its day, and the house remained associated with his name long after the family was gone.
Both buildings declined in the 20th century as the neighborhood changed. The Landmarks Society of Greater Utica acquired 1 and 3 Rutger Park in 2008 and began the slow work of stabilization and restoration. The society now uses the houses for tours and programs, and the restoration itself has become part of the story local guides tell.
Sources
The haunted reputation of the Rutger Park mansions is recent and tied directly to the restoration. As Landmarks Society volunteers and contractors spent long hours inside the partially gutted houses, accounts accumulated of shadows moving at the edge of vision, lights with no obvious source, voices in unoccupied rooms, and bells ringing in buildings that no longer have working bell systems.
The society has built tour programming around the stories rather than dismissing them. Themed 'haunted mansion' tours of 1 Rutger Park center on John Munn and his household, framing the reported activity as protective rather than menacing. Regional paranormal groups have investigated the Munn house, and Rutger Park appears on central New York 'most haunted' lists compiled by local radio stations and folklore writers.
The specific claims remain the kind that come with old houses under restoration: named witnesses are mostly volunteers and staff, and the accounts are atmospheric rather than tied to a single documented tragedy. The buildings' interest for visitors lies as much in the architecture and the preservation effort as in the ghost stories, which the Landmarks Society presents as one more chapter in two houses that have been continuously reinterpreted since the 1830s.
Notable Entities
The Landmarks Society of Greater Utica leads guided tours through 1 and 3 Rutger Park, covering the architecture, the families who built the houses, and the ongoing restoration. Seasonal and themed tours discuss the shadows, voices, and ringing bells volunteers and restoration workers have reported inside the buildings.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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