Ozzie's Ghost

By M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
In the 1930s, Oswald "Ozzie" Nelson and Harriet Nelson became famous on the radio show, The Baker's Broadcast. In 1944, they launched their own radio show, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet which later became a well-known sitcom by the same name that ran on television from 1952 to 1966. The house on the set was modeled after their real home, which would eventually develop a reputation for being haunted.

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Dick Foran, lived there previous to the Nelsons. He was arrested for a drunken brawl with police c.Aug. 1940

The Nelson house is located on 1822 Camino Palmero Street in Los Angeles' Hollywood Hills. It was built in 1916, for a prominent Los Angeles businessman Harold G. Feraud, on a sloping half-acre parcel in the exclusive Las Colinas Heights subdivision. Architects Frank Kegley and H. Scott Gerity designed it in a colonial revival style.

In 1937, the bank put it up for sale for $16,500. Cowboy actor Dick Foran then lived at the house with his wife, Madeleine Piper Hollingsworth and their two children. In 1940, as part of their divorce agreement she gave up the claim to the house, and he stayed there. She had charged him with cruelty during the divorce suit. Things didn't go good for Dick. A few months later he was arrested; pleading guilty to a drunk charge after fighting the arresting officers. 

The Nelsons purchased the two-story property in 1941, and the exterior shots of the The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet show featured the actual house.

The family lived there until 1975, when Ozzie died from liver cancer in the house. Harriet moved to another house they owned in Laguna Beach. She died in 1994. 

The Laguna Beach house was built in the 1950s by the Nelsons, and was sold by David Nelson in 1997. The new owners razed it, and built a new one in its place. The property went up for sale in 2022 for $40 million. David Nelson passed away in 2011. No ghostly sightings have ever been reported there.

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The Nelson house on 1822 Camino Palmero in the Hollywood Hills

According to the real estate agency that handled the sale of the house at Las Colinas Heights three times, paranormal occurrences were reported not only by those who have lived there, but workmen as well.

The apparition of Ozzie was seen walking throughout the house. He's been seen eating ice cream in the kitchen, which was something he like to do when living. The occupants would wake in the early morning to find the drawer containing the ice cream scooper pulled ajar. He also visits the pub room where he had a model train set that would run on its own.

Renovations throughout the years changed the layout of the house as it was during the time the Nelsons lived there, however the exterior is much the same as when it was built over a hundred years ago.

​The family that occupied the house in the late 1970s, complained of lights and faucets turning on and off by themselves, hearing footsteps and witnessing doors opening and closing without anyone being around them. There were times when the smell of rose-scented perfume wafted through the air.

At one point the new owners asked Dr. Barry Taff to investigate the supernatural occurrences. A woman who lived there during this time described feeling a spirit pull back the bed sheet, and something kissed her neck and breasts. Dr. Taff told them this was not uncommon. They were so uncomfortable they ended the investigation and sold the property.

In June, 1994 a painter working by himself in the house saw a misty white form, which was preceded by the sound of footsteps.

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Ozzie and Harriet Nelson and their 2 young sons during the time their show was in its heyday

Despite the persona Ozzie Nelson cultivated for his TV character, historians have described him as being an authoritarian figure that micro-managed his family's lives, especially those of his two sons David and Ricky.

He quashed plans for them to attend college, insisting that they continue to work in show business. As a workaholic he no doubt loved his children, but the family business came first.

​Rick Nelson went on to have his own musical career. He died in a plane crash on Dec. 31, 1985, at the age of 45, on the way to a concert in Texas, at a time when he was struggling to revive his singing career.

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The Nelson family in front of their house

The house was featured as Ari Gold's house in Entourage.

In 2014, actor Christopher Meloni purchased the home, which despite having been the abode of a "wholesome" family had acquired the reputation of being very haunted.

In May, 2022, according to Dirt, the house was sold in an off-market deal to director Rawson Marshall Thurber for $5.9 million. It had gone on the market originally in 2020 for $6.5 million. It was removed from the open-market shortly thereafter and rented out for $29,500/month.

​Question is, does the house still deserve its reputation as being haunted? Does Ozzie Nelson still walk throughout the house checking out the renovations, and wondering where his train set went, or has he gone on to the greatest adventure of them all?

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