Is the Lizzie Borden House Still Standing? Inside the Real Fall River Home Behind Netflix’s ‘Monster’

Netflix’s true crime anthology just dropped its most unexpected chapter yet, and it has sent viewers straight to Google searching for the real history behind the story. ‘Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story‘, the fourth installment of Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s anthology series, was released on September 17, 2026, on Netflix, and it finally gives the franchise its first female subject.

For anyone who just binged the season and is now wondering whether the actual crime scene is still around, the answer might surprise you. Not only is the house still there, it is one of the most visited true crime landmarks in the country, and its story is almost as strange as the one currently streaming.

The Real Lizzie Borden House in Fall River

The Lizzie Borden House is notorious for being the home of Lizzie Borden and her family, and it is the location of the 1892 unsolved double murder of Lizzie’s father and stepmother, Andrew and Abby Borden. It is located on 230 Second Street in the city of Fall River, Massachusetts. The three-story clapboard home currently operates as the Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast and Museum, so the structure at the center of ‘Monster’ is not a set recreation, it is the genuine 19th century building.

The real Lizzie Borden was born in 1860 to a wealthy family living in Fall River, Massachusetts, and in August 1892, her father Andrew and stepmother Abby were discovered dead in their home, having been attacked with a hatchet. Suspicion fell on Lizzie after she gave contradictory answers to police officers, and she was tried but eventually acquitted. Lizzie was arrested and jailed for the murders, but acquitted on June 20, 1893, after a sensationalized trial.

Today, the meticulously restored Lizzie Borden House stands as a time capsule of late Gilded Age America, and it has become something of a pop culture pilgrimage site for fans of the genre. The historic house has operated as a bed and breakfast since 1996, long before Ryan Murphy ever set his sights on the case.

From a True Crime Landmark to a Bed-and-Breakfast

The house’s transformation from crime scene to overnight destination is one of the stranger footnotes in American true crime history. The Fall River home where Lizzie lived for the rest of her life after being acquitted, a Victorian house called Maplecroft, has also gone up for sale in the past, showing just how much of Borden’s physical legacy has survived intact.

The historic Lizzie Borden House was purchased in May 2021 by Lance Zaal, the owner of U.S. Ghost Adventures. In June 1893, Lizzie Borden stood trial and was later acquitted for killing her father and stepmother with an ax, and the house where the crimes took place is now a working bed and breakfast run by Zaal.

Visitors who book a stay are not just sleeping under the same roof, they are sleeping in rooms decorated to match the era. The entire home is decorated in 1890s decor, and photos of the actual crime scenes are displayed in the rooms where the ax murders occurred. Fox News Digital reported the three floor home has no hallways at all, meaning any visitor must walk through one bedroom to reach another.

According to the bed and breakfast’s staff, the room where Abby Borden was found murdered has consistently been the most requested room among guests, which says a lot about the appetite for this story decades before ‘Monster’ brought it to a streaming audience.

How Netflix’s ‘Monster’ Brings the Case to Life

Set in Fall River, Massachusetts in the late 19th century, the show follows Lizzie Borden, played by Ella Beatty, a peculiar young woman suffering under the hand of her cruel stepmother Abby, played by Rebecca Hall, her detached father Andrew, played by Charlie Hunnam, and the pain of her difficult menstrual cycles. A friendship with the family’s new housemaid, Bridget Sullivan, played by Vicky Krieps, cracks open Lizzie’s world and shepherds her along a bloody path that will forever go down in infamy.

Ella Beatty was cast after an extensive search from Murphy and Brennan, and she previously appeared in Murphy’s Feud, Capote vs. The Swans. The season also folds in another notorious killer for context. Sarah Paulson appears in the trailer as convicted serial killer Aileen Wuornos, who killed seven men between 1989 and 1990, nearly a century after Lizzie Borden’s parents were killed.

According to the show’s creator, the goal was never to simply restage a courtroom drama. Ian Brennan has said the season explores misogyny, gender roles, and societal expectations placed on women in the Victorian era, while also examining class and sexuality through the relationship between Borden and Bridget Sullivan.

Why the Borden Case Still Captivates Audiences Today

The staying power of this 1892 case is not just a Netflix phenomenon, it is baked into the house itself. A Borden history specialist explained that the summer tourist season sees a constant stream of people who want to spend the night at the scene of the decades old crime, a detail that lines up neatly with the renewed curiosity ‘Monster’ has generated.

More than 133 years after the murders, patrons, staff, and ghost hunters still report chilling encounters inside the Fall River home, and ghost tours are now offered nightly, focusing on the history and hauntings of Fall River. That blend of true crime tourism and haunted house folklore has made the property a year round attraction rather than a seasonal curiosity.

‘Monster’ has dramatized high profile homicide cases in American history since it premiered on Netflix in 2022, with each season focusing on a different killer, and this is the first time the anthology has centered a woman. Whether or not the new season sends even more visitors knocking on the door of 230 Second Street, the house has already proven it does not need Hollywood’s help to keep people talking.

Now that you know the crime scene behind ‘Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story’ is real and still standing, would you actually spend the night in the room where Abby Borden was killed.