An urban explorer has uncovered an abandoned £10.5 million mansion where £10,000 worth of designer shoes were left in unopened boxes and luxury cars have been left to rust
We all wish we could live a life of luxury, but the owners of this £10.5million mansion left their lavish property abandoned.
Filmmaker and photographer JeremyXplores stumbled across the mansion in Northeast America last year, where he found thousands of pounds worth of luxury goods left unopened and collecting dust. The urban explorer found a designer shoe collection worth £10,000 plus luxury cars worth £80,000 when he visited the property, which was abandoned in 2016 when the owner's family could not keep up with the £50,000-a-month mortgage payments.
Images show the expansive exterior of the 10-bed, 11-bath property made up of four buildings left unfinished, while another shot shows left-behind vintage cars including a Volkswagen Bug and a Mercedes Benz. One haunting picture even shows an impressive shoe collection containing Chanel, Christian Louboutin and Nike Air Max all still in their dust-covered boxes.
The 27,000 sq foot home was built by a local surgeon with multiple medical offices in the area. The surgeon moved his family into the home while it was under construction, however, just six months later he and his 15-year-old son were killed in a plane crash. He left behind a wife and three other children but he had not been paying the premiums on his life insurance, meaning that all financial support was removed from her.
At the time of his death, there was still £8million owed on the mansion and the mortgage was a hefty £50,000 a month. When the bank seized the property three months later, it was 90% finished and has been left abandoned since.
Urban explorer Jeremy, from Nashville in Tennessee, captured the images of the mansion on his Sony A7IV with a Sony G Master 12-24 2.8 lens and he filmed in the freezing cold location for around 11 hours.
He said: "I found the location during a Google map search of rumoured abandoned mansions in the area. The man who built this mansion was very accomplished, graduating from one of the nation's finest medical schools, he became a surgeon, a father of four, and even a recreational pilot. Having built a thriving empire with nine medical offices, in 2006, he decided it was time to build a dream mansion for his family.
"He was by no means a flashy man but no expense was spared in the elaborate design of this 27,0000sqft luxury villa. Comprised of three stories, not counting the full basem*nt, the white marble mansion has eleven bedrooms, thirteen bathrooms, a visitors quarter, an indoor pool, an outdoor sports complex, a four-car garage, a mahogany library and an elevator."
Jeremy went on to explain that while the property was under construction, the family moved into the home and six months later, the surgeon and his teenage son were in a tragic single-engine plane crash.
He explained: "They were both killed upon impact. To make matters worse, his multimillion-dollar life insurance policy had been cancelled when he failed to make payments on the premium for the three months leading up to his death. All financial support for his family had been stripped and eight million dollars was still owed on the mansion, not to mention the mortgage was a staggering £50,000 a month.
"And with the mansion unfinished, the prospect of selling it to someone who had the money, time, and vision to complete the elaborate build was out of the question. It took only three months for the bank to seize the property and the house was foreclosed. But the mystery of this mansion lies in the huge amount of valuables left inside including luxury cars, lavish furniture, expensive designer clothes and so much more."
As the photographer made his way around the mansion, he soon realised he wasn't alone as there was a homeless man in the building. Jeremy added: "I could hear a homeless man on the second floor moving about after I had apparently awakened him when I had closed the front door.
"I hid from a vantage point and waited for him to finally leave out the back window. I then began my exploration and filming my experience. But as the exploration went on, my excitement shifted into a feeling of sadness and reverence for the family who had lived there and watched their dreams come crashing down along with the plane that killed their father and his son.
"It felt as though I was walking through a memorial of the life and the love that once dwelled there but was forced to leave under the most tragic of circ*mstances."
A majority of the designer items in the home still had tags on, including a pair of Dior shoes in the closet as well as a collection of expensive jewellery in the bathroom. Jeremy said: "The insurmountable waste that people produce and the amount of resources that are abandoned every day is mind-boggling. This house is an excellent example of this.
"People generally have the same reaction as I did when I first discovered this mega-mansion - they respond in absolute amazement and at the same time, sadness for the family and the home that has begun to be consumed by nature.
"It's beautiful to see people respond with such empathy for the family and shock at the amount of waste of such an amazing home with so many valuables left inside.
"I've also had a few people respond with disbelief, claiming these images are staged and the story is fabricated. In each location I publish there's always a handful of people who can't wrap their mind around the sad reality that things are abandoned at even the most astronomical scale; whether it be of historical, monetary, or sentimental value."
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