The long-abandoned houses of Upstate New York (photos)

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A photographer has devoted years to capturing the numerous “time capsules” in Upstate New York.

These artifacts are houses that have been abandoned and are now slowly deteriorating outside. Sometimes they are huge and empty, while others still contain the furnishings, clothing, and pictures of their previous occupants.

Photographer Bryan Sansivero, a native of Long Island who studied filmmaking in college but chose a career in still photography after graduation, became interested in them. His primary sources of income were fashion photo sessions, events, and commercial work. On the side, he also documented his own personal journeys.

I’ve always had the desire to explore, so I did that on the side and didn’t do it for money, according to Sansivero.

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His relationship with abandoned houses started when he went exploring and entered houses that appeared to have been abandoned for a long time while staying with family in rural Pennsylvania. The first one he entered was a house built in the 1700s and situated on an old fruit orchard in the middle of the woods.

He added, “I wondered how all of this could be left behind; these houses are truly cool. There was a piano and a lot of vintage pictures. I discovered it to be fascinating. I adore old things and history. I find the antique pictures amazing.

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He gradually began fusing his passion for decaying mansions, rural residences, and institutions with his fashion photography, staging picture shootings with models against these backdrops. The homes then turned into the major draw.

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Depending on how big a home is, Sansivero said he might spend four or five hours photographing it. His popularity grew as he started posting social media articles with 30–40 photographs of a single house. As it happened, he started to interact with other explorers on social media who would suggest places for him to visit next.

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What began as a modest single project grew into a large-scale tour that involved meeting many people and taking hundreds of homes into discovery.

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The “Catskill Clown House,” which has been highlighted on numerous blogs and news websites, is the one Sansivero claims receives the most questions about out of all the homes he has taken photos of and placed online. The stately house is situated atop a sizable winery that has been abandoned far into the Hudson Valley. Four to five outbuildings, including a barn with wine barrels, a wine cellar filled with bottles, and grapes still growing on the vines outside, are present in addition to the main house.

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The main house has a simple, rather modern outside, but it was wonderfully furnished inside with vibrant colours and what appeared to be big-top themes.

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The house has been sold and refurbished since he took the images two years ago.

Where is this is one of the most often asked questions he receives on his social media posts. Sansivero acknowledged that it was a difficult topic to answer because the information might draw a lot of attention to the houses. Even while some homes appear to be utterly deserted, many of them still have owners who keep an eye on them, according to him.

Also, the likelihood of a place being vandalized and graffitied increases as its notoriety grows. He described one palatial house in Sleepy Hollow, New York.

“It looked medieval and had 50 rooms. It was amazing. It upsets me to see and hear that the site was wrecked, vandalized, and entirely graffitied after one of the models I was with gave it out to someone who brought five or six people there, Sansivero added.

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As a result, he no longer goes on group exploration trips and has returned to primarily solitary outings in order to protect these home fossils.

After taking countless pictures over the years, Sansivero has now published a book called “American Decay” with them. Although there are homes in the book from all across the country, he estimated that Upstate New York residences make up around half of the images.

He said that some counties and towns in Upstate New York are rife with foreclosed houses, such as the virtually deserted town of Parksville in Sullivan County. He claimed that the “Borscht Belt” region of the Catskills contained some of the nicest houses he had ever photographed, despite nearby vacation homes and previous resort towns being deserted.

Not every abandoned house he discovered, though, was a good fit for the book.

“Occasionally, when I entered a home, I could tell it wasn’t appropriate for the book. Then as I entered another room, I was amazed by how colourful and eye-catching the walls were. It’s fantastic,” declared Sansivero. “I prefer it when the ceiling leaks, the paint is flaking, and it’s in a terrible condition. I make an effort to convey that it has been abandoned while still including what has been left behind.

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He plans to write a book exclusively about the kitchens in these abandoned homes in the future, and he might even travel abroad to conduct comparative research.

More images of the foreclosed houses in Upstate New York can be found below.

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