Oh snap! Was the house from “The Addams Family” really inspired by a building in Syracuse, N.Y.?
Syracuse University’s Hall of Languages has long been rumored to be the basis for the Gothic mansion where Gomez, Morticia, Pugsley and Wednesday Addams lived in the 1960s TV show. Designed by Horatio Nelson White in the Second Empire architectural style, SU’s 1873 building certainly qualifies as kooky, spooky and altogether ooky.
Screenwriter Seaman Jacobs, who worked on “The Addams Family” and other classic sitcoms, graduated from Syracuse University in 1932 and wrote for the campus humor magazine The Orange Peel. His script for a 1964 episode of “The Addams Family” is available in the school library’s special collections…