Haunted Summerwind

If one goes looking for ghosts in Wisconsin the name Summerwind always pops up.

This mansion was located on the shore of West Bay Lake for 72 years. It burned down in 1988 after it was hit by lightning. Despite this fact, many still have questions about this place and its ghosts.

Summerwind 

This mystery began in 1916. Robert Lamont was working as Secretary of Commence in Herbert Hoover’s administration when he bought an old fishing resort along the Michigan border near what is today the town of Land O’ Lakes.

The property came with a hunting lodge and several smaller cabins. Lamont turned this property into a comfortable summer home. He had 4 new fireplaces built with two forty-foot chimneys. He had a grand terrace added and expanded the size of the home.

He had steam heat put in and had servant quarters built. He named his new retreat, Lilac Hill.

Lamont was the first of several owners that realized that the property was haunted. One day hearing noises in his kitchen he discovered what he thought at first was an intruder.

He shot at the person twice. To his amazement this figure then vanished as he watched it.

Lamont along with various of his guests also were overwhelmed with a feeling of a "flight response" when they spent time on the homes' second floor.

After fire

In the 1930s Lamont’s family sold Lilac Hill after his death. Many felt they did not want to deal with the properties ghosts any longer.

In 1941, a family named Keefer bought the property. They were soon to regret this purchase. They spent the next 30 years trying to get rid of it. They sold it five different times only to have the new owners return it to them within days of their purchase. One disaster after another happened to each new owner--it appears the ghosts were unhappy.

In 1972, Arnold and Ginger Hinshaw purchased the property now known as Summerwind. They moved in with their 6 children.

They immediately started to notice odd activity. In the evenings as they ate dinner the family often saw a lady wearing a white dress dancing in their living room. Also a window in the master bedroom would open on its own.

Ginger started to redecorate the home. She threw out an old lace curtain that hung between the home and the servant’s house several times only to find it hanging once more in its original spot.

Several of the Hinshaw’s new appliances, including a water heater and pump broke down only to start working again several weeks later. The couple became frustrated when local repairmen refused to step foot on the property.

One day as Arnold went to enter his car it caught on fire mysteriously.

One of the most disturbing incidents happened when the family pulled out a large drawer in a linen closet upstairs to find a dark open space. They discovered a mummified corpse with shriveled limbs and dark hair hanging from its skull.

The couple decided to just leave it--not wanting to stir up more activity.

The activity in the home eventually took a toll on both Arnold and Ginger. Arnold felt driven to play the family organ each evening--his music became more frenzied as time went on.

He eventually stopped working on the house and had to seek professional help.

Ginger found that she became overwhelmed with feelings of despair. Soon after the family moved out, Arnold and Ginger divorced.

The Milwaukee Journal, 1985

In an odd twist to this story--Ginger’s father, Raymond Bober, purchased the property. He intended to turn the large home into a bed and breakfast.

Ginger’s parents and brother Karl also experienced the strange activity. The lace curtain continued to appear and the master bedroom window continued to open.

Karl often heard his named called out when he was alone in the home. The family also heard phantoms gunshots in the kitchen.

Ginger remarried and returned to help her family restore the home. She decided to show her parents the corpse but it had mysteriously disappeared.

The Bobers also discovered some kind of time and space distortion. They would measure a room one day only to discover that several days later it had shrunk or expanded in size.

Photographs they took of various rooms would often reflect furniture that was no longer there.

What is left of Summerwind.

Today, thrill seekers still enter the property in hopes of seeing ghosts. All that remains is part of the foundation, the chimneys and weeds.

Gardner’s "The Victorian"

Mansion in the early 1900s

Locals in Gardner, Massachusetts call an old spooky mansion in their community “The Victorian.” For many years the residents have told tales of the scary ghosts that reside in this home.

Sylvester K. Pierce originally had this home built in 1875. It was placed on a piece of land right across the street from his successful furniture business, which made chairs.

In 2008, Edwin and Lillian Gonzales were seeking a change. Edwin was given the opportunity to work from home, and Lillian had always wanted to renovate a Victorian house.

They decided to move from Boston.

Lillian’s sister told them about a home in Gardner that was selling for a very reasonable price and was the ideal Victorian property.

When Edwin called the realtor, he was surprised by her attitude. She quizzed him on whether he really wanted to visit the mansion, which he found odd and then ignored.

When the couple first walked into the mansion, Lillian fell in love with it at first sight. The couple brushed off the realtor’s warning that the home was haunted.

The Gonzales’ bought the house. But as soon as they moved in, they noticed something wasn’t quite right.

The couple discovered several of their possessions had been moved. At first, they ignored this. But by the spring of 2009, the activity took a turn for the worse.

One afternoon, while Edwin worked in his home office, an image of a man appeared right in front of his face. He then saw a hand swing at him--he put his own up to deflect the blow.

After this incident the Gonzales noticed more strange activity--it occurred both day and night and especially during full moons.

One room in the mansion called the Red Room had a violent history. The story told is a client became angry with a lady of the evening and murdered her in this room.

At one point a medium and a small group toured the home. The medium went into a trance while in the Red Room. She attacked another member of the group--it seems the murderer had taken control of her and attacked a woman in the group that reminded him of the prostitute he had killed.

The Gonzales noted that anytime women visited this room they had trouble breathing. Men who visited, on the other hand, felt nothing.

The original owner's oldest son, Edward Pierce is said to haunt the home’s cellar. He while alive claimed he saw his dead mother in a hallway in the mansion.

This son lost his family home in a poker game and the winner of his house, feeling bad, let him stay. But he had to live in a room in the cellar. 

In this cellar, people have sensed a negative energy.

Near the cellar’s cistern children have been heard laughing, and shadows are seen. Two little girls are known to have died in the home--one drowned in the back pond and the other named Rachel died at the age of 5 in 1918.

In 2011, new neighbors moved in next door to the Gonzales. Edwin noticed that one young son from this family kept staring up at his office window. The mother of this boy knocked on their door the next day.

She asked how many children they had, he told her they had none she then asked who was the young boy dressed all in white that had invited her son to come play with him the day before?

A Massachusetts paranormal investigator, Eric Perry has been in the mansion several times. His team has seen shadows, heard voices and footsteps in the Red Room and collected several EVPs.

In the cellar, he has heard a child’s voice requesting, “Come play with me.”

He believes the mansion is haunted because it is on a ley line. He also believes the house has a portal * to the left of the grand staircase. In this area, people have reported something pulling them back.

The television shows Ghost Hunters and Paranormal Witness have both highlighted the Gonzales mansion in episodes. Paranormal Witness did the reenactments for their episode in three other homes--they found the real mansion too scary to film in.

* I discuss Portals in another post here.

The Gonzales decided to have the mansion blessed. This, unfortunately, exacerbated the situation.

Lillian began to feel sick while inside the home--once she went into the yard she felt fine again.

She decided to sleep downstairs because the activity upstairs became annoying. One night while sleeping downstairs she woke up at midnight screaming, “Get it off of me.”

Edwin Gonzales

She had felt something heavy on top of her. At the same time, Edwin began to see an apparition of a lady in one upstairs window.

Deciding the activity was not something they wanted to deal with any longer the couple packed up--they left 80 percent of their possessions behind. The couple still owns the home, but in 2013 they moved into an apartment in Gardner.

“The Breakers” Ghost

The mansion called The Breakers is one of American’s best examples of the Golden Age, which lasted from 1900 until the stock market crash in 1929. 

Cornelius Vanderbilt ll, a businessman * and a member of one of American’s wealthiest families had this beautiful mansion built on land in Newport, Rhode Island. ** This estate has formal gardens, a private beach and a spectacular view of the Atlantic Ocean.

Today this mansion is a National Historic Landmark and is owned and operated by the Preservation Society of Newport. 

The family still owns all the furnishings and retains ownership of the third floor for the families’ use during the summer season—this floor is not open to the public. Some speculate that the reason for this is an ancestor of the family, Alice Vanderbilt, still haunts the home.

The Breakers has 70 rooms, it was first built between 1893 and 1895, at the cost of over $12 million. Vanderbilt had America’s foremost architect Richard Rothschild Hunt design his new home in the Gout Rothschild style. *** 

Electricity was installed in 1933. Today the mansion is worth over 335 million dollars. 

The home has three main floors with an attic and basement. The first floor includes a great hall, grand staircase—that visitors can not use, a library, a lower loggia—formal living room, separate ladies and gentleman’s reception rooms, arcade, billiards room, music room, dining and breakfast rooms, morning room, porch, pantry, and kitchen. 

The second and third floors have 14 bedrooms combined. Plus each of these floors has a sitting room. There are also thirty servant bedrooms. ****

The attic has servant quarters as well as a cistern that supplies fresh water to most of the home's bedrooms. The laundry room and servant restrooms are in the basement.

This mansion today is one of the largest and most opulent homes in the very wealthy community of Newport.

Cornelius Vanderbilt ll died of a stroke in 1899, at the age of 55. His wife Alice Claypoole Gwynne Vanderbilt inherited the property. She outlived her husband by 35 years—she died at the age of 89 in 1934. She willed The Breakers to her youngest daughter, Countess Gladys Szechenyi because Gladys loved the estate. 

In 1948, Gladys leased the high-maintenance property to the non-profit Preservation Society of Newport for $1.00 a year. The one condition set forth was that the family was to be allowed to continue living on the third floor. Gladys passed away in 1965.

In 1973, the society bought the mansion from Sylvia, Gladys’ daughter for $345,000. But again the family retained ownership of the third floor. 

Sylvia died in 1998, Gladys and Paul Szapary and Sylvia’s children still spend summers there.

This estate is the most visited museum in Rhode Island. It hosts over 300,000 visitors a year.

Family members first saw the ghost of Alice Vanderbilt after her death in 1934. In the years following, the family, servants, tour guides, and visitors all have seen her ghost. 

Witness descriptions of her always match Alice’s appearance while she was alive. The family admits her ghost has been a constant presence, but they have never allowed an investigation of the mansion.

As they state everyone knows who the entity is and they don’t want to disturb her. They feel The Breakers reputation should be maintained. They want their family home to be known for its beauty and grace, and not just as a “haunted house.”

Cornelius Vanderbilt ll

* Cornelius' grandfather--Cornelius Vanderbilt made his money from shipping and the railroad. He was one of the wealthiest Americans in the 19th century. He was known for his competitiveness and his ruthlessness. When he died in 1877, he was worth 100 million dollars. 

Cornelius Vanderbilt ll inherited 5 million from his grandfather and just a tad under 70 million from his father. Vanderbilt ll took over the family business-- the New York Central railroad lines in 1885.

** The former mansion on the property had burnt down, so Cornelius Vanderbilt ll insisted his new home be fireproof. The estate was built with steel trusses with no wooden parts. Vanderbilt had the home's furnace located away from the house. It is placed under the avenue near the estate’s main gate—this area stays clear in the winter for the furnace below melts any ice or snow.

*** The Breakers is also an ultimate expression of Beaux-Arts architecture.

Alice holding an
electric light at a
ball in 1883.

**** Alice Vanderbilt's bedroom is on the second floor. It is shaped in a perfect oval--its doors cut into its' walls in a manner not to disturb the room's geometric perfection. One entry connects to her husband's bedroom. 

Alice had four closets to allow for her seven clothing changes per day. Her room was also her study and has many bookshelves. There is a discrete corridor on this floor like on the others, which permitted the Vanderbilt's servants to move about their duties--serving the family in a seemingly invisible fashion.

Atherton Mansion: San Francisco’s Most Haunted

There are several mansions in San Francisco, California that are considered haunted. Most of these mansions are located in the exclusive Pacific Heights district. 


They all have fascinating histories connected to them, but the mansion that has the most fascinating story is the Atherton Mansion located at the corner of Octavia and California streets. 

This mansion is considered haunted even today.

A very bitter lady by the name of Dominga de Goni built the Atherton Mansion after her husband died. Hers was not a happy marriage. 

Dominga, was the daughter of a prominent Chileno family when she met her husband Faxon D. Atherton who had traveled to Chili in 1834. Atherton made his fortune in trade, he married Dominga and moved to California where he was one of the wealthiest businessmen on the Pacific coast. 

He and Dominga had seven children, but Faxon was a notorious womanizer who alienated his wife and family.

Dominga left to her own devices used her husband’s wealth to create her own powerful social world. This included a strict dominance over her family. 

Her eldest son George Atherton, who later married one of California’s most prominent authors, Gertrude Franklin Horn was often the brunt of his mother’s domineering ways. 

Upon her husband's death, Dominga had the Atherton Mansion built. When it was completed in 1881, Dominga and George and his new wife Gertrude moved in.

Unfortunately, George never lived up to the standards his mother expected from his father’s son. He, in fact, became a social embarrassment for his prominent family. 

George’s wife Gertrude was also a strong-willed woman, so George found himself stuck between two very domineering women. His manhood was challenged regularly.

Finally, fed up, George in 1887, accepted an invitation to sail to Chili. He stated to his wife and mother he was going to visit friends. But he actually hoped that he might follow in his father’s footsteps so that he could prove his worth once and for all. 

But the trip proved to be disastrous. George developed kidney problems during the voyage and died.

The ship’s captain preserved George’s remains by storing his body in a barrel of rum, which was shipped back to the Atherton household several weeks later. 

No note arrived with the cask of rum, so the family butler assumed it was just rum. He and the rest of the household received a nasty shock when the barrel was opened to reveal the body of his former master.

George’s body was dried out and buried, but his spirit has never rested peacefully. Shortly after his burial, the two women that had plagued him in life began to have very unnerving experiences. 

Both Dominga and Gertrude reported being awakened in the middle of the night, by loud knocks upon their bedroom doors. Even more unsettling, both ladies described a menacing presence that seemed to lurk in their rooms. 

The activity became so pronounced that Dominga decided to move out of the Atherton Mansion—she sold it shortly afterward.

But the nightly disturbances didn’t end. Each new tenant described hearing endless knocks and feeling cold spots. The new owners never stayed very long. 

This pattern continued until 1923 when the property was sold to an eccentric lady by the name of Carrie Rousseau. Carrie took up residence in the mansion’s ballroom * surrounded by over 50 cats. She lived in the Atherton Mansion until her death in 1974 at age 93.

In recent years, the mansion was remodeled and made into several apartments. But the activity still occurs. 

Residents .report moving cold spots, winds that blow through closed rooms, and strange voices at night. The knocking sounds are still heard as well. ** 

People who have investigated the house state that there are three female spirits present, “who just don’t like men,” and there is also a frail male spirit in the house. Some believe these spirits are the ghosts of Dominga, George, and Gertrude Atherton, the third female spirit, is believed to be Carrie Rousseau.

* She converted the ballroom's orchestra chamber into her living space. Her cats lived in the adjoining apartment, formally the Atherton Mansion banquet hall.

** The San Francisco Chronicle ran a story about one tenant--a singer by the name of Aurora Booth, who told them about a mysterious rushing wind that blasted through her small apartment. 

Another tenant, Jerry Ladewig, a dental assistant, claimed that a loud rapping would disturb her as she tried to fall asleep. Yet another tenant moved out of the tower room apartment after being harassed by several ghostly apparitions.