Fairfield Hills State Hospital

A massive psychiatric hospital in Newtown (1933-1995) where Dr. Bernard Brody performed 107 lobotomies in one year and underground tunnels connected 16 buildings to an on-campus morgue. Now partly redeveloped with a brewery in the former staff dining hall, the sealed tunnels and empty buildings still generate reports of screaming voices and phantom footsteps.

NewSylum Brewing Company pours craft beer in Stratford Hall, the former staff dining room and library of a psychiatric hospital where a doctor performed 107 lobotomies in a single year. The brewery, which opened in June 2020, is the first for-profit commercial tenant on the Fairfield Hills campus. Their head brewer, John Watson, brewed his first batch on March 31, 2020, in a 9,000-square-foot building that once served meals to the people who ran one of New England's largest mental institutions.

Fairfield Hills State Hospital opened on July 5, 1933, receiving 32 male patients transferred from Connecticut State Hospital. Within a year, that number hit 536. By the 1960s, the patient population peaked above 4,000 in a campus designed by architect Walter P. Crabtree Sr. to look like a college, not an asylum. Georgian Revival brick buildings spread across 770 acres of Newtown countryside. The architecture was meant to convey dignity. What happened inside the buildings did not.

Beginning May 25, 1946, Dr. Bernard S. Brody launched a lobotomy program. In that first year alone, 107 patients had portions of their frontal lobes severed. Eighty-five percent were schizophrenics whose prognosis "seemed extremely unfavorable." According to the results published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, 56.7% showed some improvement, 37.4% were eventually discharged. The rest didn't improve. Some died on the table.

The lobotomies weren't the only horror. In November 1941, a patient was beaten to death. The autopsy revealed the truth, five attendants were fired, two were convicted of manslaughter, one of assault. In November 1945, an inquiry into "serious charges of maladministration" forced the superintendent to resign. In December 1944 alone, 41 patients died from influenza and bronchopneumonia. The Board of Trustees discovered patients were kept in "mass seclusion" because there simply weren't enough workers to care for them. Some patients starved without feeding assistance.

Beneath the manicured grounds, a labyrinth of concrete tunnels connected all 16 patient buildings. Built in 1938, these passages transported patients, equipment, food from the central cafeteria, and corpses to the on-campus morgue. Former staff confirmed the routine: deceased patients were wheeled through the tunnels, out of sight of the living population above.

Governor John Rowland closed the hospital on December 8, 1995. The remaining 120-odd patients were transferred to Connecticut Valley Hospital in Middletown. The abandoned complex immediately attracted urban explorers and ghost hunters.

MTV got there first. In September 2000, the reality show Fear filmed an episode at Fairfield Hills, disguising the location as "St. Agnes Hospital" to discourage trespassing. Director Luis Barreto described the experience bluntly: "That place was not good. There were weird cold areas in some rooms. Half the room would be cold, half wouldn't be. There were nasty smells all over the place. I actually got sick." During filming, a contestant performing a seance in the basement began speaking in tongues, which spooked the crew badly enough that the episode became the only one where cast members were offered a $3,000 bonus dare.

Ghost Hunters (TAPS) investigated in April 2011. Investigators who've explored the buildings before and after describe a consistent catalog: voices that sound like screaming in pain, heavy footsteps through empty corridors, dark figures crouching in doorways, and the overwhelming sensation of being watched. The tunnels were the worst. Whispered voices and phantom footsteps in a sealed concrete passage underground.

The Town of Newtown acquired the property in 2004 for $3.9 million. In 2009, they sealed the tunnels by welding access points shut and filling passages with concrete. Several buildings have been demolished, including the morgue. Others were repurposed: Bridgeport Hall houses municipal offices. In September 2024, the campus was officially listed on the National Register of Historic Places, preventing further demolitions.

The grounds are open for walking trails and recreation. The vacant buildings are strictly off-limits. Police patrol heavily around Halloween. But the brewery is open, and you can drink a pint in the same room where hospital administrators once ate lunch while 4,000 patients lived in the buildings surrounding them.