Kind of Creepy, Kind of Cool

I have been meaning to share some photos of the place where Mary's club volleyball team practices at the Newtown Youth Academy. It's on a campus that also houses the Town of Newtown town offices. Those buildings are all nice. But . . . . the campus is an old state mental hospital called Fairfield Hills that operated from the 1930's until 1996 and at its height housed around 4,000 patients. (In other words, it's quite large.) I read online that the Town of Newtown bought the property in 2007 and since that time they've added (or renovated -- I'm not sure) the sports center and town offices. The old buildings are really pretty (great colonial architecture), but also really in disrepair. There must be at least a dozen of these old buildings. The grounds are well taken care of. So that's why I say it's kind of creepy, but also kind of cool. Take a look and you'll see what I mean.
The Newtown Youth Academy - a beautiful indoor sports facility that opened in 2008.

The creepiest building - the Litchfield House. It's quite a bit larger than it appears in the photo, but I took a close-up photo so you could get a feel for the state of disrepair.

Another hospital building. This must be a beautiful room, but with so many broken and dirty windows it doesn't look at all inviting.

Another example of a pretty building in need of some serious maintenance.

In this day and age, it seems amazing that such pretty structures and adornments were built for a mental hospital.