A $1.6 billion luxury resort community in Missouri was a dream that had everything—except people.

A video of the subdivision of abandoned expensive mansions has gone viral, as social media viewers let their imaginations run wild. 

 

See it for yourself in the video as TikTok user @carriejernigan1  filmed a scene of a spine-tingling 900-acre ghost town of mansions in Missouri, which racked up over 2.1 million “likes” on Thursday this week.

Abandoned Resort Mansions – Indian Ridge Resort – Branson West, MO (Screenshot/TheGadgetGuy1/Youtube Video)

Her over-the-weekend video showed eerie footage of massive, decaying abodes abandoned amid overgrown plants at the Indian Ridge Resort in Branson, more than a decade after the housing market crisis.

She said in the video that the resort community was to be built at an expected cost of $1.6 billion in 2006, and  was intended to have one of the country’s largest water parks, golf courses, hotels conference centers and shopping. The resort’s developers also hoped to include a marina, a 390-room hotel, a museum, and the world’s second-largest indoor water park, according to local station KYTV-TV.

Abandoned Resort Mansions – Indian Ridge Resort – Branson West, MO (Screenshot/TheGadgetGuy1/Youtube Video)

Observers this week characterized the once-opulent homes as “scary” and “nightmare-inducing”.

“I want to go there but it looks haunted,” wrote one TikTok user.

Likewise, a second observer said: “I’ve been there and it’s one of the worst feelings I’ve ever felt.”

Another confessed simply, “I’m scared.”

Abandoned Indian Ridge Resort Mansions in Branson Missouri (Screenshot/J&M Explorations/Youtube Video)

 When the housing crisis struck in 2008  it turned into a ghost town. Five individuals had been sentenced to federal jail, two of whom had lied to obtain loans for the project. And now, 13 years later, the houses just sit here.

Abandoned Resort Mansions – Indian Ridge Resort – Branson West, MO (Screenshot/TheGadgetGuy1/Youtube Video)

The project also suffered with other legal troubles.

After excavated soil washed into Table Rock Lake, the developers were found guilty of breaching state and federal clean water regulations. Jim Shirato, the original lead developer, was ordered to pay a $125,000 fine.

The inability of Indian Ridge Resort and North Shore Investments to abate, monitor, or delay erosion from the construction site continued through at least the end of August 2011, according to the U.S. attorney for Missouri’s Western District.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation purchased the development for $3.1 million in 2012.

In 2015, the land was acquired by new developers.

The Ridge, a new development at Table Rock Lake,  began taking shape in 2018, with the hope that investors will not be discouraged by the project’s turbulent past, which is still grand in scope.

”With 9 million visitors annually to the area, this property is uniquely situated to benefit from the broad local, regional, and national market that plays, works, and lives in Branson, Missouri”, the developer wrote in their online marketing materials.