Inside the House That Suggests History Got Sad Spinster Lizzie Borden All Wrong

Ella Beatty in Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story —Courtesy of Netflix After she was acquitted for the murders of both of her parents, Lizzie Borden did not adopt a pseudonym and disappear into obscurity.

Instead, she spent her ample inheritance (equivalent to about $10 million dollars today) exactly as she’d always wanted to before her parents’ untimely demise: On an imposing 4,000-square-foot, seven-bedroom Queen Anne Victorian mansion in the swankiest neighborhood of her hometown of Fall River, Mass.

She named her new abode “Maplecroft.” Borden—the subject of the latest installment of Ryan Murphy’s Netflix Monster anthology , which has previously dramatized the stories of Jeffrey Dahmer , the Menendez brothers , and Ed Gein —lived out the rest of her life at Maplecroft and died there almost exactly 100 years ago.

The home’s a mere mile from the so-called murder house where Andrew and Abby Borden were famously axed to death in August 1892, when Lizzie was 32 years old.

Some 50,000 true-crime fanatics flock annually to the macabre site (now a museum and bed and breakfast), but few know to trek up “The Hill,” as Fall River locals call it, for a glimpse of Borden’s other home.

Now, as then, it’s a private residence whose owners would prefer looky-loos walk on.

The exterior of the house, newly yellow after the Dohertys tested dozens of shades. —Brooke Mullins Doherty Current owners Brooke and Michael Doherty bought the notorious property in 2021, reluctantly.

“When Michael first showed me the house, I said I didn’t want to live in the house of a hatchet murderer,” admits Brooke, whose family previously lived 20 minutes away in a home they were quickly outgrowing.

Maplecroft offered plenty of indoor and outdoor space, but with three young children in tow, they worried about unwanted publicity, strangers peeking through windows, and even ghosts haunting the halls.

Brooke and Michael Doherty, current owners of Maplecroft, purchased the house in 2021, setting aside its eerie history in favor of its craftsmanship and ample space. —Brooke Mullins Doherty But it was those hallways—and the grand and back staircases, six carved fireplaces, original crown molding, Tiffany sconces, and stained glass windows throughout—that kept the Dohertys returning to the French Street home.

“Soon enough I was convinced I could absolutely live in this old Victorian house that was basically a museum,” says Michael.

When the previous owner’s plans to turn Maplecroft into a bed and breakfast fell through during the pandemic, the asking price lowered to $800,000 and the Dohertys made a successful (undisclosed) offer.

The front hallway of the home, which features its grand staircase, which Borden had constructed after purchasing the house.