House? It’s more of a mansion, really. Maybe even a chateau, a palatial country estate fallen to ruin among the trees. It seems to grow an extra storey of broken windows every time you look up at it. Turn a corner and you’re walking down a row of boarded doorways, more like an abandoned street than a single residence.

This is no gothic cathedral with graves on the lawn and bats in every belfry. It’s just some curious shamble of New England brickwork, its dripping beams an...