Where Does Stephen King Live? Hint: It’s Not His Famous Maine Victorian
Beth Helvey October 29, 2025
Beth Helvey October 29, 2025
Where does Stephen King live? Many fans know that the prolific horror author based the setting of his massively popular book turned film franchise, It, on his longtime town, Bangor, Maine. In recent years, however, King and his wife of over 50 years, Tabitha, have split their time between other properties where they have more privacy. The couple’s Victorian house in Bangor has become a site of fan pilgrimage, iconic for its blood-red exterior and intricate black iron gate. So, where does the King of horror reside now? Read on to find out, plus discover the other notable dwellings he has lived in over the years.
In the fall of 1974, King moved to Boulder, where he wrote The Shining, his Colorado-based novel that became the basis for Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film. “I’d been writing about New England so much, I wanted to write about somewhere different. So I got a map and told my wife, Tabitha, to close her eyes and point,” King explained in a 1980 interview. “She pointed at Boulder, Colorado. So we went there and lived in a tract house in a subdivision.” Not much else is known about the dwelling, but the Kings stayed there for a little less than a year before moving back to Maine.
According to King’s official website, he and Tabitha first bought property in the town of Lovell, Maine, in December 1977. After a brief stint renting a home in Orrington, Maine (more on that below), the Kings returned to Lovell in 1979. Following the purchase of their Victorian property in Bangor, Maine, in 1980, they retained their Lovell pad as a summer home. Not a lot has been reported on the details of King’s Lovell properties, but he has continued to buy in the small town, primarily along its picturesque Kezar Lake. In the early 2000s, he and Tabitha reportedly bought a campground in the area and closed it down, reducing noise from boats and Jet Skis on the lake. The couple still maintain their residence in the quaint town, which has a population of around 1,000 people. King took inspiration from the town for the setting of his 2009 novel Under the Dome, even writing about a fictional version of the area’s beloved general-store-slash-diner and its owner.
In 1978, the Kings rented a turn-of-the-century Colonial farmhouse in Orrington, Maine, while the author was a writer-in-residence at his alma mater, the University of Maine. The four-bedroom, three-bathroom home spanned about 3,800 square feet, with wood-burning fireplaces gracing the formal living and dining rooms on the main floor. As the lore goes, King’s daughter’s cat was struck by a truck and buried on a hill behind the house, inspiring the plot for his 1983 novel Pet Sematary. The two-story dwelling was across the street from a store that King frequented. “That’s actually where I wrote the book—in [the] storeroom,” he explained in 2017. King rented the home for about a year before moving on. The three-acre property most recently changed hands in 2024 for $389,000.
King at his home in Bangor. Photo: Dick Loek/Getty Images
According to listing records, King paid $135,000 for his Bangor, Maine, home in 1980. The 5,000-square-foot Victorian dwelling, which was built in 1870, sports a red exterior and is tucked behind Gothic wrought iron gates featuring spiders, bats, and other spooky creatures worked into its ornate design. It sits on a two-acre property, offering five bedrooms and five and a half bathrooms. In a 1983 essay, King explained that he was working on writing It when he arrived in Bangor, which provided plenty of source material for the tome’s setting of Derry, Maine—a fictional stand-in that “any native of this city will recognize almost at once as Bangor.” Literary inspiration aside, King was drawn to the abode itself. “Of course we fell in love with the house we live in, and it has never disappointed us,” he wrote. “West Broadway attracted us, with its graceful Victorian homes, its lovely trees, and its feeling of being a peaceful sort of inlet very close to the bustle of downtown.”
The property is a fan landmark, attracting a reported 4,000 visitors annually from one tour company alone—many others drive by the striking abode on their own to snap a photo of its foreboding exterior. In 2019, King got approval to rezone the residence into a nonprofit organization, hosting an archive of his work, available for scholars to peruse by appointment, and a writer’s retreat, accommodating up to five people at a time to stay in a neighboring guest house, which King purchased in 2004, according to The Columbian. “They did not want the house to become a Dollywood or some kind of tourist attraction,” Bangor planning officer David Gould said at the time. The decision came after the Kings began spending more time traveling and at their other properties in Maine and in Florida.
For the last three winters of the ‘90s, King and Tabitha flocked to a rental home on Longboat Key, Florida, according to Sarasota Magazine. The 1997-built home, reportedly the tallest on the barrier island, was privately tucked along the water. The 6,000-square-foot house sat on 2.5 acres, with four ensuite bedrooms, beach access, a swimming pool, an elevator, marble floors, and numerous decks overlooking Sarasota Bay. King stayed at the three-story concrete and glass dwelling while he recovered from being struck by a vehicle in 1999. The experience inspired the setting and plot for Duma Key, his 2008 novel set in a similar locale, where its protagonist retreats to heal from an accident. Per Sarasota Magazine, King set up his office in a corner of the home’s garage, “where there is nothing to see but a spooky tree branch outside a high window.”
King officially added a home in the Sunshine State to his real estate portfolio in 2001, plunking down $8.9 million for a secluded three-acre property on Florida’s Casey Key. The record-breaking sale marked the most expensive in Sarasota County on record at that time. Composed of glass and concrete with a copper roof, the contemporary-style waterfront dwelling spans 7,500 square feet, with three bedrooms and five bathrooms. The pad, which was built in 1991, is complete with a swimming pool in addition to its views of the surrounding waters. The Carrie writer still maintains this home.
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