Читать книгу Ghosthunting Colorado - Kailyn Lamb - Страница 11

On the corner of 11th Avenue and Pennsylvania Street stands the monstrous Croke-Patterson Mansion, now more commonly known as the Patterson Inn. The large mansion is supposedly haunted by the wife of a previous owner, who may have committed suicide in the house.

CROKE-PATTERSON MANSION notoriously fits in with Capitol Hill’s most famous homes, but the house has also taken on a life of its own. Standing on the corner of 11th Avenue and Pennsylvania Street, the house fills three lots and is made of beautiful red stones most likely taken from what is now the Garden of the Gods park near Manitou Springs, Colorado. Its looks alone are enough to make passersby stare in wonder, but it is the mansion’s history as one of the most haunted houses in Colorado that makes it really amazing. With a dance card of séances, deaths, suicide, an alleged satanic carriage-house keeper, and human-shaped apparitions, it is clear why the looming red sandstone structure has an aura about it. Although many of the stories tied to the house have little to no root in truth, the house does have a colorful history that makes its red coloring very fitting.

Thomas B. Croke was a teacher from Wisconsin who came to Denver and made his fortune as a businessman. After purchasing a lot around 1890, Croke commissioned architect Isaac Hodgson Jr. to build the 14,000-square-foot mansion, which he completed in 1891. Hodgson had already built several other houses in the area and, much like his other designs, this mansion’s architecture was inspired by that of French châteaus. According to the current owner, architect Brian Higgins, it is the last remaining châteauesque house in Denver.

From the beginning, Croke-Patterson Mansion had a reputation. A basic Internet search on the house brings up several websites that tell a “legendary” tale of how Croke was not able to spend even one day in his new home because something felt wrong about it. Real estate records reveal, however, that Croke lived in the house for six months, and the real culprit for his vacating the mansion was more likely the crash of the silver market. In addition, Croke’s wife passed away before the house’s completion, leaving him a widower as well as a single parent. Croke’s parents also joined him living in the house, but his mother died shortly after moving in.

Records and letters show that Croke later traded the house for land that was owned by Thomas Patterson, perhaps the house’s most well-known owner. Patterson was a US Senator for the state of Colorado for one term, from 1901 to 1907. He previously had served in the United States House of Representatives in Colorado’s 1st district when the territory first became a state, serving from 1877 to 1879. Patterson was also the owner of the Rocky Mountain News, Colorado’s first newspaper. He lived in the house with his wife, Katherine, and daughters, Mary and Margaret. Patterson also had a son, James, who had committed suicide in California before the family moved into the house.

Mary died of chronic illness in 1894 and after the death of his wife in 1902, Patterson deeded the house to his daughter Margaret and her husband, Richard C. Campbell (the house is sometimes called the Croke-Patterson-Campbell house). Patterson lived in the house a total of 23 years, until his death in July of 1916. The Campbells continued to live in the mansion until 1924, the longest any single family ever did.

The Campbells sold the house to the Louise Realty Company. Before becoming home to another family, the mansion changed hands and uses several times. However, the next family to live in the Croke-Patterson Mansion is frequently skipped over in online accounts of its history.

Dr. Archer Sudan purchased and moved into the house in 1947. Sudan was president of the Colorado Medical Association and moved his practice from the mountains to Denver. His wife, Tulleen, who was also a nurse, accompanied him. They also had a son, Archer Jr., who did not live with them in the mansion, as he was old enough to live on his own at the time. Although Tulleen was said to be happy and social, she committed suicide in the house in 1950 using cyanogas, a powerful pesticide, in one of the bathrooms. It was rumored that the reason behind her suicide was that she had a miscarriage.

What is most surprising about these residents being excluded from most written histories of the house is that it is the supposed ghost of Tulleen Sudan that permeates most of the tales. A woman who lost her baby looking longingly out the third-floor window, the sounds of a crying baby when no one is in the house, and the supposed burial of a baby in the basement are among the accounts related to her. There is also a rumor that the baby was murdered. Tulleen, however, was 47 when she died, past the age of healthy childbearing, and there is no record of a child being born in the house. Some people who have entered the house even claim that they begin to feel as if they cannot breathe when walking up the stairs to the third floor. Cyanogas creates cyanide when combined with moisture, effectively suffocating anyone close enough to be exposed to the gas. Supposedly, Tulleen used a bathtub full of water, creating the cyanide to kill herself. Dr. Sudan continued to live in the house after Tulleen’s death until 1958. After he and his second wife moved out of the house, Archer Jr. moved into the mansion, serving as landlord for the separate apartments his father had created upon moving in. Records show it was sold in October 1972.

Many of the stories of apparitions point to Tulleen’s spirit having never left the house after her death. But there is more to the story of the mansion. History major Mary Rae, who along with her husband became the next owner in April 1973, helped save it from demolition and later helped make it a historic landmark (Colorado’s Landmark Preservation Commission Ordinance 457, July 1973).

Rae made many improvements to the deteriorating building, including cleaning out the basement, which she claims to have cleared of fetuses, brains, fingers, and other body parts in jars that were presumably collected by Archer Jr., who was also a doctor. Rae also continued to keep the apartment structure that the Sudans used when residing in the building but never lived in the house herself. Several of her tenants would leave in the middle of the night without paying, too scared to stay in the building. Many claimed to hear babies crying on the third floor, even though there were none living in the building at the time, and there was no one living in the room the sounds were reportedly coming from, which was used for storage. The mansion had quickly become a financial sinkhole, so Rae sold it in 1976.

In the late ’70s, the building was renovated to become an office space. Construction workers would leave for the night, only to come back the next day and find all their previous day’s work undone. Suspecting that people, and not ghosts, were behind it, workers put a fence around the building, and when that did not work they brought in a guard, who quit after one night. Next, guard dogs were brought in to protect the work site. There are multiple accounts of what happened next, but they all agree on one thing: one of the dogs jumped from a tower window in the building on the first night and died of his injuries within several days. According to other versions of the story, another one was also mortally injured on the second night. The other guard dog was found in the basement in a catatonic state, in which he remained for the rest of his life.

Despite these setbacks, the office space was eventually completed, but the hauntings did not stop, and employees would hear typewriters and other office supplies being used when there was no one around. Many tied this to Thomas Patterson, saying that some scandal or story had not made it into the paper, so a departed Patterson was going to do it himself.

One person, who owned the building in 1998, claims to have seen ghosts and witnessed household items move on their own. One resident of the building in 2004 claims to have seen apparitions of a maid who would go up and down the stairs, with only her upper body and torso visible and her legs seeming to dissipate. There is also a story of the ghost of Katherine Patterson helping a pregnant resident roll over.

Rocky Mountain Paranormal Research Society (RMPRS) has worked with the current and previous owners of the building, such as Dr. Douglas Ikeler and his wife, Melodee. Bryan Bonner of RMPRS says that he heard the story of the pregnant woman firsthand from Melodee, who lived in the mansion with her husband for 10 years. Bonner added that, including the owners he has personally worked with, anyone who has been in contact with the mansion for long periods of time seems to start to “lose it.” He used Tulleen Sudan as a prime example.

Depending on which version of the story you believe, several dogs that were meant to act as guards when the Croke-Patterson Mansion was being renovated jumped from this tower window. No one knows what caused the dogs to jump, but many suspect that it was one of the spirits who allegedly resides in the building.

RMPRS also did a radio show out of the mansion during one of the periods it was vacant. Its members decided they were going to stay the night there for the show. One of the sound engineers stayed in the basement. According to Bonner, he came back upstairs immediately, saying there was a man standing in the corner. They searched the mansion but could not find a man. Bonner added, however, that it was the same corner of the basement where the catatonic dog was found, and it was the same corner that the Ikelers’ daughters had previously claimed to have seen a man standing by their toys.

The house remained vacant for a while before its most current owner, Brian Higgins, and his business partner at the time, Travis McAfoos, purchased the building in hopes of turning it into a bed-and-breakfast. According to Bonner, Higgins at first planned to completely renovate the building to its original historic state, but changed his mind entirely after staying in the mansion. Higgins decided to film the renovations on the building, documenting his own “hauntings” and mishaps that occurred while the work was in progress. Higgins’ documentary, which he directed, edited, and titled The Castle Project, begs the question as to whether he believes in the haunts that reside in his bed-and-breakfast. Higgins, who stayed in the house for several days during the renovation, filmed a bat flying around the building at night and caught footage of an apparition of a maid in the large mirror on the main floor of the house. He also recorded audio of disembodied voices. Contractors working on the renovation also reported seeing shadows and apparitions, as well as feeling cold spots, smelling putrid odors, and hearing noises such as music, babies crying, and other voices. A fire, which Higgins claims started the same night as the Waldo Canyon fires near Colorado Springs at that time, caused several setbacks in renovation.

After an 18-month renovation, the mansion was reopened in August 2012 as the Patterson Bed and Breakfast. Since then, it has landed on CBS’s top 10 bed-and-breakfasts list, in July 2014. With nine themed rooms and accommodations such as large flat-screen TVs, Higgins has worked hard to erase the stigma surrounding the Croke-Patterson Mansion. He renovated it for the modern world but kept some of the historical Victorian-era design, such as the mansion’s famed stained-glass windows. For the cost of spending a night there, paranormal enthusiasts can decide for themselves whether the mansion is still haunted.