Southern Mansion

The Southern Mansion from Eras of Elegance
A wealthy industrialist, George Allen, built the Southern Mansion as a summer home for his family in 1863. Cape May was a getaway for the rich and famous, and the Italianate-designed Mansion was one of its featured homes (it's now part of Cape May's historic district).

The Allen's house sat on a acre and a half estate, lined with trees and dotted by Italian gardens, with mahogany woodwork, intricately carved crown moldings, fifteen feet ceilings, giant gilded mirrors, grand ballrooms, and 5,000 square feet of verandas surrounding it. Allen and his family summered there for 83 years.

George's niece, Ester Mercur, and her husband were the last of Allen family to call the mansion home. Ester loved the estate, and when she died, her husband, Ulysses, couldn't bear to remain there without her, and sold the whole shebang for $8,000. He was in an emotional rush to get out, and didn't vet the next caretakers very well.

The new owners turned the place into a boarding house. They painted the beige structure white, and converted the mansion into a rat's nest of small rooms to let. It gradually evolved into a poorly kept flophouse, and after 50 years, the hotel license was yanked because of the deplorable condition of the once-proud building.

In early 1994, the mansion was bought by its current owners, who turned it into a boutique hotel and event center. In just 18 months, after carting out 25 dumpsters of accumulated junk, the mansion was fully restored and renovated back to the spittin' image of its glory days.

The original owners must have liked the restoration. Some of them came back to enjoy their old home as yappy specters, while another had a complete attitude make-over.

First, voices and hushed conversations have been heard and reported from all corners of the Southern Mansion. It's thought that ghosts of the mansion's summer home era have returned, enjoying the building as in days of yore. Paranormal investigators have captured the spectral talk on EVP.

There's also one spooked out, but unidentified, room that weighs heavily on its mortal visitors. Folks claim that they get the feeling of anxiety and tension when they enter the space. There's never been a report of an apparition present, just a universal sense of angst.

It's believed that a highly emotional death occurred in the room, like a suicide, murder, or illness/accident.

But hey, the ghost of Southern Mansion isn't about the bad times. The star spook is Ester, and she's one happy lady now. It wasn't always that way; back in the boarding house days, she was often reported roaming the Mansion as a sad visitation, no doubt bummed to see how far her beloved home had tumbled downhill.

But now that the house has been restored to its heyday look, Ester is a joyful spirit, apparently delighted that the mansion is once again like home. And she's been seen all over the place, in different guises.

In the kitchen, staff members claim that a female apparition watches over them while they prepare the meals, cook, and clean. In fact, the elderly woman seems very much at home there, even trying to help out. That's Ester, tending to her homefires.

Visitors entering the Mansion reportedly hear a lady's laughter echoing off the walls with music playing, and see a beautiful woman dancing up a storm in various rooms. That's said to be Ester, too.

Ester's also been spotted as the image of a decked-out hostess, wearing a gown and wafting a trail of lilac perfume as she floats through the halls, with the sound of her swishing petticoat clearly audible.

So hey, scared of spooks? You'll get over that with one visit to the Southern Mansion. Ester is the happiest ghost this side of Casper.

Cape May's Working Girls

The Merry Widow
Hey, it's been a while since we've taken a road trip, and while it's not summer yet - darn groundhog! - we decided to head east to the Jersey seashore and Cape May.

Founded by Dutch explorer and seaman Cornelius Jacobsen Mey, the town began as a whaling community in 1620, named Cape Mey. By 1720, it was known as Cape May and had morphed from a whaling port to a seaside resort town.

It also picked up the reputation as New Jersey's most haunted city over the centuries, making it the perfect vacation Eden for us. First we visited the Queens Hotel, on Ocean and Columbia Avenues.

Now it's a nicely laid-out bed and breakfast. It began in 1876 as Ware’s Pharmacy, a local apothecary. But you could get more than a prescription filled there; it also sported a speakeasy, a gambling den and a third floor brothel. Well, it was a resort, and you gotta keep the tourists healthy and happy, right?

One city-wide fire raged through Cape May in 1878 and damaged the Ware’s Pharmacy building, and it had to be extensively remodeled. It became bigger to support its thriving businesses, and was rebuilt ala the then-current Victorian architectural fad.

And one of its working girls is still working the house. Her haunted hang out is on the third floor where the old cathouse operated, and she's been blamed for all sorts of little antics.

You can tell when she's present by a powerful scent of perfume drifting through rooms and the accompanying cold spots. She also likes to play around some, moving objects around and rearranging the furniture more to her liking.

The ethereal lady of the evening has more physical attributes, though - she enjoys bumping into the upstairs beds, where she no doubt spent a great deal of her time.

Even more cattily, she's been known to jostle the other lady guests in the upstairs hallway, maybe in jealousy, or maybe just to let them know that they're intruding on her territory. Can't make any money if there's too many girls on the same corner, hey?

If you want to avoid her, local lore says she's just looking for a little appreciation for her services, so if you leave a buck or two on your third floor dresser, she'll consider her work satisfactorily rendered and will let you be.

That's the story of one working girl; we took a jaunt to Jackson Street - supposedly the most haunted street in the the most haunted city, how could we resist? - to check up on another, at the Merry Widow B&B. (Most of this tale is told by Susan Tischler in the Cape May Magazine.)

The spook here is an honest, hard working domestic, and dates back to the 19th century. She first became known to the owners in 1899, when the proprietor heard a knock and opened the door to a distinguished gent who asked if his old companion, Esmerelda, was still around - as a ghost!

As they spoke, the temperature in the foyer inexplicably dropped lower and lower. Feeling a little spooked, the landlady shut the door on her chilly visitor, but in a second reopened it, feeling a bit impolite and a lot curious. But, of course, all traces of the man were gone.

A short while later, one of the guests wondered if the home was haunted after seeing an unexplained female form wandering around on the first floor. Hmmm...

She asked the upstairs tenant if there was anything odd about her stay in the Turret on the third floor. "Nah," she says, "just the woman sitting at the end of the bed."

Now the innkeeper was worried. Haunted B&B's weren't exactly the rage at the turn of the century, and she knew her job was closely intertwined with the number of guests the Merry Widow took in. So in the off season, she did some exploring.

She discovered an old laundry chute under the third floor Turret bed, and found out the room belonged to a nanny named Esmerelda who worked for J. Henry Edmonds, the original owner of the house.

Did one of the kids come back looking for his old nanny? Is she still tending the place she called home? Or is the Merry Widow trying to drum up a little PR noise? They do offer a "Physick Tour," and the Inn is part of the Cape May Haunted Tour.

Hey, all we know is that the French Turret room is small, and been described as "spooky" by many of its guests, although we haven't found any of them willing to collaborate Esmerelda's presence.

So hey, go find out yourself. Jackson Street alone is supposed to have eight haunted homes, and Cape May has a list of eerie spots a mile long. My spook sensitive bud from Philly, LC, is fascinated by the place and assures me that there are more spirits there than you can shake a scary stick at.

These are just a couple of tales of gently haunted homes. Cape May seems like a place no one likes to leave - ever.