THE HAUNTED HAMPTON HOUSE, PART 1: A NOVA SCOTIA REAL ESTATE NIGHTMARE | W5 INVESTIGATION

ctv's W5 an abandoned

house

a troubled past a unique opportunity and I

real

ly feel that each property has its own soul, but before the dream came true, this was a big mistake. I will never be okay with this, this will not end well. All hell breaks loose. I don't think you're right about this. I think you're wrong. I need this

house

back. You can't have this house. It should have been torn down. Here Avery is welcome to Hampton, Nova Scotia. small fishing village where the main attraction is this lighthouse hardly seems like the place where you would find a story of mystery, intrigue and broken dreams and yet there is a drama of epic proportions unfolding involving a British family who moved here in search of a The simple life and the

nightmare

that has unfolded since they bought a house known locally as the Hampton Haunted House along the shores of Nova Scotia's spectacular Funi Bay.

Hampton is a blink and you miss it. The attraction of this town. The majestic view from. the homes and cottages that dot the coast and this home is the crown jewel with its own working lighthouse in the front yard 2600 square feet of restored elegance four bedrooms all with en-suite bathrooms a top quality kitchen huge space meeting place and a spectacular terrace with millions of views of dooll I

real

ly feel that each property has its own soul, if this house has a soul, it has been tortured for decades, the house was boarded up but fully furnished, well, people used to always call it the Hampton Haunted House, it might look like this.

Now it's a dream home, but it's shrouded in a legal

nightmare

. There are 42 government employees actively working to get us out of this house. Oh yes, good on paper. The house belongs to Ian and Lorna Tenniswood, who invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in the re

nova

tion through their killer construction company - they fix up old houses for a living - they moved here from the UK years ago attracted by the unique Heritage homes in Nova Scotia Annapolis Valley Annapolis is a very quaint and very attractive city and we saw nothing but opportunity, we are surrounded by properties That excited us if you were making a name for yourself in the community as someone who could restore old houses.

Yes Yes. A big

part

of our job was cleaning up other people's messes. They have been hired to work on dozens of homes, even at one point. For the former owner of the Hampton house, a house they later bought at auction with a winning bid of just $50,000, an auction that would come back to haunt them, there was no insulation, there was no, I mean, it was just overrun with creatures that They had to enter it is like when you see the castle for sale for a dollar but you have to make millions of dollars exactly. I mean this house really for anyone who didn't really know what they were doing is nothing but a huge liability, it should have been downsized, your plan was to fix it up and then sell it, how long did this re

nova

tion take?

This took about 6, seven months, all hands on deck, 24/7, these beams are extraordinary, the beams. they were here but they were hidden we had employed between 17 and 20 employees during the time they were racist against the clock trying to put it on the market quickly to cash in on the red hot real

estate

boom in the summer of 2022, how much do you budget to renovate the house and how much cost. How much did you think about this place? We budgeted about 250,000 and sank 600. Yeah, we shouldn't have done this at all. It was a big mistake. Does this place feel cursed?

Yes, we are sorry. Damned because even though the Woods of tennis have this deed, the Nova Scotia government claims that the Hampton house is not theirs, in fact, they don't even live here, okay? Come on guys, come fill up water bottles to drink, they wash clothes, I think it's a Full load, honey, I'm not going to fit in or clean anymore, yes, how delicious, tennis. The Woods aren't cleaning up after themselves. I hate duvet covers. I don't even know how, but after short-term rental guests, oh, he left us a bottle. of wine, what a sweet man, the vacationers who pay to stay in the one-of-a-kind house in Nova Scotia with a working lighthouse and the bay in the front yard, this is where they now live almost an hour away, They call it the cave. there is no running water and only a generator for electricity.

I like to spend my time in the cave but I don't want to live in it. It's a bit strange. Theo has a bunk bed and then with Aiden, because he's over 6 feet tall, he won. It doesn't fit on the other bunk so we had to get an inflatable mattress that basically takes up the floor. I don't think it's as spacious as Hampton's house, that's for sure, hey guys, have lunch, bring your chairs, okay? I am PL. Okay, the reason the Woods of tennis don't live in the Hampton house is because they're completely broke. The only way to survive financially is to rent it to vacationers.

I mean, how would you describe your finances now? We mortgaged our house to finance the renovation here, which was a big risk, but we didn't feel like it was a risk that we wouldn't get our money back, we felt very safe knowing that. that what we could turn this into would be a gem and it is, um, and we thought we knew the money would come back to us, they sold their family home, maxed out their credit cards, took out loans, borrowed money from family, convinced that they would recover everything. once his investment property, the Hampton house, was sold, not only did we sink ourselves, we didn't sink my dad in it too yeah, yeah, yeah, we borrowed money from him, yeah, which we really shouldn't have done In retrospect when the renovation was done in July 2022, tennis player Woods put the house on the market for more than 3/4 of a million dollars we had of the 600 we invested in it, so in his valuation of 790 there was still a margin that, you know, would have made it worth it, yeah. and then an unexpected twist: the Nova Scotia government has frozen the house preventing them from selling it and is also asking the courts to return the house to the previous owner a New York artist named medy Matten what are you doing in this my house?

I need to make a I need to get this house back you can't have this house what were they thinking I would just lie down and die? I would just let them take my house and just sit here and smile maybe you could rob anyone else's house but once you do it to me you will have to compete with me no you have no right to this house we have the deed and in your contestation of that scripture you question every scripture of each. boyfriend there's a chance you'll lose this house oh yeah strong when we get back this sounds like a circus it was a circus a civil dispute takes a nasty turn I paid you to fix my house now I'm fighting for my house when W5 continues the Bay of Funy has some of the highest and lowest tides in the world overlooking its spectacular coastline.

The Hampton house dating back to the 1850s before Woods tennis destroyed it. The house was linked to a mysterious and eccentric couple from New York. This is Harlem, about as far from Hampton, Nova Scotia as you can get, but that's exactly what two New York artists were looking for when they saw a real

estate

listing for the idyllic Hampton home in the New York Times in the 1960s. Founders of something called the Uranian Fanery, a group that Gossip Mill in Nova Scotia was pretty convinced was a cult, is the Uranian Fanery a cult? No, we don't value, no one is forced to come and you know, people just contribute what they want.

I personally believe that most cults have charismatic leaders who are manipulative, which is not what Richard Dar or I aspire to be. Matten is a New York artist who runs the Uranian Fanería that was founded in 1969 by his mentors Richard and Dorothia Tyler, whom Medy calls Dar. They definitely do not have a black magic practice, however, they were enchanted by things that were otherworldly and did not shy away from them. In the 1960s and 1970s, their followers made pilgrimages to the Sleepy community of Hampton to connect with nature, they had

part

ies wild and even a massive wedding, I declare them husband and wife, they were prolific artists, sensitive beings who will never be separated from great happiness.

Richard Tyler called himself reever and liked Tibetan tattoos. He died in 1983 and the Hampton home fell into disrepair when Dortha died in 2012. The home landed in Medy Matten's lap. I inherited everything. She was my benefactor. She understood that I would continue the work. Hampton's house was part of the job. I brought our entire community there. Most of the Inner Circle has worked on housework. that included redoing the roof, putting in water and electricity, and then in 2018, he hired tennis player Woods' Killer Construction to do even more. How would you describe the relationship you had with tennis player Woods at the beginning of your contract together? to work on the house and you would pay them to work on it saviors saviors I felt like these people were going to come and take my house to a new level I was very happy for what kind of things did they hire you to do in the house for M was things strange, strange things, yes, what I wanted to do in the house was really a very peculiar idea, like putting kitchens in the bedrooms.

It is never our position to argue simply to guide and save as much cost as possible. Possibly we can Lorna kept detailed records and sent weekly updates to Medy with receipts and photographs. Medy, in turn, would send weekly payments from New York totaling $82,000 for approximately 5 months. Tennis player Woods also says that he was told when a project was impossible. but with the news about the barn, it seemed like he had lost it on that, um, when he found out that the barn he wanted to save couldn't be saved, couldn't be saved, yeah, and he went crazy, he went from being calm and collected and Immediately, completely enraged, I got there and saw my barn on the ground and I lost it and I lost it.

I actually hurt my hamstring kicking in the dirt. I wondered why you didn't tell me and it was explained in great detail. pictures, we've had emails and phone calls and everything else, so the reaction when he came to see them was actually quite strange because he knew it had happened. Medy refused to pay for the last two weeks of work a total of approximately $10,000. and then tennis player Woods took medy to small claims court what should have been a simple case dragged out for 2 days medy had become so raped by IR so angry he was jumping all over the place this sounds like a circus it was a circus he was mainly yelling at the judge I had a nervous breakdown because I knew what was happening, I knew they were doing something against me and I got so excited I had to leave the courtroom.

He was so distraught that the judge ruled in favor of The tennis player. Woods took note of the detailed reports they had submitted and noted that if Medy did not keep up to date with those reports, he did so at his own risk in November 2019. He was ordered to Matten to pay the money he owed just over $10,000 plus interest. I'm not okay with that I don't believe in that decision right, the decision could have happened I don't believe in that I don't believe in that and when that decision was made what was your gut reaction oh Rel relev yes yes relief Yes, you thought this was over, yes , yeah, yeah, okay, now there's a judge saying okay, you have to pay the money, so he'll pay the money, so he'll pay the money properly, but he did.

When the ruling comes that says you have to pay this $105,000, why didn't you pay? I had spent all my money trying to fix that house 7 months after the small claims ruling in June 2020, Woods tennis hired Windsor, Nova Scotia lawyer Michael McKenzie who sent him this letter demanding payment. There was also a warning not just about Hampton's house. but Medi owned another piece of land in the area, this 40 acre property, and I basically said if he didn't pay, we would pursue remedies including a foreclosure sale of land, what exactly is a foreclosure sale of land? to the court um you have received a judgment from the court um and then you have gone a year without payment or insufficient payment and um then you have the right to publicly put the property up for sale at the Sheriff's Office The sale of land under foreclosure It is relatively rare, but is similar to a foreclosure.

Med's properties would be sold at auction and with the proceeds, tennis player Woods would receive the $10,000 plus interest from him. Med's response to that email, the offer was, to say the least, absurd as it should be. $10,000 was being offered to come here in the summers and work for them at $250 a day or be a painter. He would sell her his own paintings at a 15% discount. I mean, it was an absurd offer and when you arrive. He gets this letter that says: I'm going to offer this. What goes through your mind. We are not going to reach an agreement.

You knew. I just said, "Tell your client, thanks, but no thanks," and then they emailed me a second letter. and mail just to besure um to say okay, you haven't paid your judgment and now this is what's happening and it's explained to you that the sale of the land is going into execution, the warning in that final letter there will be no further notice Before we take the next step. , I thought he was going to pay, why would anyone let their house go up for auction? 10,500 emails were sent directly to you telling you if you don't pay this $10,500 they are going to auction this house I never got those emails I never got those emails but whose fault it is that you didn't respond to them or you didn't open them I didn't get them call me you go take my house from an email make a voice record hey Manny is this you yeah it's me uh we're going to take your house oh why oh $10,000 okay call me for the second time in September 2021, almost 2 years after the small claims court ordered Medy to pay the money. 62 Hampton Warf Road and its 40-acre parcel of land went up for auction in At what point did you decide?

You know what maybe we should make an offer on this house maybe we should make an offer the night before, yeah the night before our, my dad had come to visit us and the three of us sat there and talked about it. We did it with a glass of wine and decided maybe we should and they did it in Nova Scotia. Auctions are conducted by the Sheriff's Department. This is the sheet that shows the exchange with another bidder, tennis player Woods, under his company called Killer Construction One. At $50,000, is anyone alive? Does anyone have a pulse here?

Does anyone do math? Does the sheriff do math? They should take some math classes. $5,000 is a pretty low amount for the house and those 48 acres, right, no, they were worth 50,000 the amount. Of the money that had to be invested in this house, very few people could make a 10% deposit that was supposed to be paid on the day of the auction, which would be $5,000, but the sheriff running the auction told them that it was not necessary due to debt. Instead, they were owed, told to pay just under $3,000 to cover the cost of the auction and outstanding property taxes, how are you going to sell a half a million dollar house?

Set it to 50 without telling the guy to throw away all his stuff. and then make sure they only pay less than $3,000 for it no, it's okay, I paid you to fix my house now I'm fighting for my house, oh yeah, they didn't do anything wrong, nothing, it's a lot of pain, a lot of pain, a lot of pain . so much pain and I wake up early in the morning with this right here every morning I was like wow I can't believe they did this. I can't believe they caught me like this. We assumed he knew what he was doing. a fatal flaw in the sales process they are essentially saying take the house away from tennis Woods yes when W5 continues