From the Westfield NJ Patch, November 30 2016, “Plans Started to Restore ‘Creepy and Cooky’ Historic Addams Family Historic Home (Snap Snap)”
Well, definitely not creepy…Addams’s biographer, Linda H. Davis had this to say about the house in A Cartoonist’s Life (Random House, 2006):
“…the shutters at 522 Elm Street had nothing wicked to hide. ‘I know it would be more interesting, perhaps, if I had a ghastly childhood — chained to an iron bed and thrown a can of Alpo every day,’ said Addams. But ‘I’m one of those strange people who actually had a happy childhood.'”
When most folks think of the Addams Family house they think of the Victorian home that made appearances in Addams’s New Yorker cartoons, as well as on the television series, and even on this 1954 collection of his cartoons:
For more on Charles Addams, pick up Ms. Davis’s book and visit the Tee & Charles Addams Foundation website. There’s also The Unofficial Charles Addams World Wide Website.