The Brentwood house that spawned a book, a paranormal-TV pilgrimage and years of local legend is officially for sale. Owner Bob Cranmer has put the six-bedroom, four-bathroom home at 3406 Brownsville Road on the market, pricing it at $550,000 as a straight residential sale or $625,000 if a buyer wants to keep running it as a bed-and-breakfast, contents included.
According to Pittsburgh City Paper, the home was listed for sale by its owner, and the two pricing options reflect whether the buyer wants to simply live there or continue operating it as a working guesthouse with everything inside left in place. CBS News reported that the Brownsville Road home was placed on the market in July, and the property remains best known for the claims that turned it into a minor paranormal landmark. Cranmer has long said the house was previously haunted, and that account is central to how the property has been marketed and covered in the years since.
From Family Home to Haunted B&B
The house was converted into the Brownsville Road House Bed & Breakfast in 2019 and, per the same account from TribLIVE Community, was still operating as such. That transformation followed years of Cranmer publicizing what he described as demonic activity inside the home, which he detailed alongside co-author Erica Manfred in the 2014 book “The Demon of Brownsville Road.” The alleged phenomena described in media accounts include objects moving on their own, disembodied voices, putrid smells and bleeding or stained walls, according to Pittsburgh City Paper — claims that remain attributed to Cranmer and the people who have written about his home rather than independently verified.
The property's reputation also drew formal paranormal investigators. Ryan Buell and his team reportedly spent six nights at the Brownsville Road home over two separate weekends, Pittsburgh City Paper reported, a stay that helped cement the house's standing in paranormal-investigation circles. Cranmer has also said the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh worked with his family to perform an exorcism at the house in 2006, a claim reported by Skeptical Inquirer.
Skeptics Push Back on the Legend
Not everyone accepts the haunted history at face value. Skeptical Inquirer's investigation found that the exact location of an alleged 1792 massacre tied to the property's backstory could not be established from the historical record, concluding there is no way to determine the exact location of the house of Deliverance Brown. The same investigation quoted a former resident, Karen Dwyer, disputing claims that the home was haunted before the Cranmers ever lived there. “My mother never said anything about the house being haunted,” Dwyer told Skeptical Inquirer.
Even the house's age is in dispute. Pittsburgh Magazine has described the home as built in 1910, while TribLIVE Community's report says the property dates back to 1899 — two accounts that don't agree and that neither source has reconciled.
What a Haunted Reputation Does to a Sale
Properties carrying a stigma, haunted or otherwise, don't necessarily scare off every buyer looking for a discount, but the reputation can still work against a seller. The National Association of REALTORS® notes that while stigmatized properties may attract buyers seeking a lower price, they may still reduce demand and increase the time on market. A separate industry summary from Redfin cites a Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics study estimating that stigmatized properties sell for an average of 3% below market value and take roughly 45% longer to sell, though that figure speaks to the broader category rather than this specific listing.
Local station KDKA has also reported on the home, with reporter Josh Taylor covering its history as it hits the market again. Whether buyers see the Brownsville Road listing as a bargain opportunity or a hard pass likely depends on how much stock they put in the decades of stories that turned a Brentwood house into Pittsburgh's most talked-about address.
