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The front door of the home where Charles Manson’s followers viciously murdered a pregnant Sharon Tate — and crudely etched the word “pig” using her blood — went up for auction this week.
The since-repainted cottage-style front door hit Julien’s Auction and is already fetching bids upwards of $25,000, though it will be on the market for another five weeks.
According to the firm, the white door was an original part of the infamous Cielo Drive home in the Benedict Canyon section of Los Angeles when it was completed in 1944 by architect Robert Byrd.
Though the nine-glass paned door was passed through by many celebrity homeowners — including Cary Grant, Terry Melcher and Candice Bergen — it and the European-style home is memorialized as the site of one of the most gruesome killings in Hollywood.
An eight-months pregnant Tate had been living in the home alongside her husband, director Roman Polanski, for just six months when she and five friends were ambushed.
On orders from Manson, four followers brutally tortured and slashed the actress and the four friends she had over for the night while Polanski was in London, likely because the cult leader thought a record producer who had previously scorned him was living in the home.
“Tragically taken that night were Tate and her unborn son, her ex-fiance and celebrity hairstylist Jay Sebring, Folger coffee heiress Abigail Folger and her boyfriend Wojciech Frykowski, and 18-year-old Steven Parent, with the door serving as an exit point for Frykowski who was discovered on the front lawn,” the auction listing states.
After the bloodshed, follower Susan Atkins used Tate’s blood to etch the word “PIG” on the front door.
The door remained attached to the cursed house through the following decades when its final resident, Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor rented it in 1992 to record his sophomore album, Downward Spiral.
The singer lived inside and recorded the album inside the home until he spoke to Tate’s younger sister, Debra, who asked him point-blank if he was living there to exploit the actress’ death.
Reznor moved out of the home in December 1993, but took the door with him as a souvenir and installed it at the front of his “Nothing Studios” in New Orleans, Louisiana, where it remained until the property was abandoned, according to the auction site.
The singer lived inside and recorded the album inside the home until he spoke to Tate’s younger sister, Debra, who asked him point-blank if he was living there to exploit the actress’ death.
The door may be the only surviving item of the storied murder home following its destruction in 1994.
The property is now home to a jaw-dropping multi-million mansion that “Full House” creator Jeff Franklin called home for nearly two decades.
Like the door itself, “The Cielo Estate” is also up for grabs, especially after dropping in price from $85 million to $59 million after sitting on the market for a year.