Post by Graveyardbride on Nov 2, 2014 11:38:53 GMT -5
Ghost fans hope to rebuild mansion — haunting and all
Once included in Life magazine's "Terrifying tales of 9 haunted houses," the Summerwind mansion in northern Wisconsin is today no more than a ghost itself. It exists only in spirit and in the two tall chimneys that rise from a stone foundation, all that remains after the Victorian-style, 20-room house burned down in June 1988. Yet, ghost hunters continue to show up here in Land O' Lakes on the shore of West Bay Lake, which straddles Wisconsin's Vilas County and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. They've heard the spooky stories going back nearly 100 years.
And there's another group that began coming this past summer. The Summerwind Restoration Society hopes to rebuild the house the way it was and open it as a haunted bed and breakfast. "So everybody can enjoy it, rather than trespassing and coming on the property and partying," said Craig Nehring, a leader of the effort, fan of the paranormal and founder of Fox Valley Ghost Hunters. He has become friends with the owners of the property, Babs and Harold Tracy, who have never actually lived there. Harold bought dilapidated Summerwind in 1986 as an anniversary gift for his wife, but before they could go ahead with a planned restoration, the home was destroyed by fire believed to be caused by lightning, though some say it was the work of ghosts.
Some locals still call it the Lamont place in memory of the original owner. Robert Patterson Lamont was an industrialist and, from 1929 to 1932, served as U.S. commerce secretary under President Herbert Hoover. Even he was said to be bothered by ghosts at his summer retreat, possibly the uneasy spirit of 18th-century Great Lakes captain and explorer Jonathan Carver, who once owned the land where Summerwind stood.
A story often told, including as recently as this year in the Huffington Post, is that one night Lamont tried to vanquish a male ghost by shooting at it with a pistol. Bullet holes in a door remained for many years. In the article, Summerwind was identified as "Wisconsin's most notorious haunted house," though I don't think it's widely known in Milwaukee and other southern parts of the state.
However, in 1985 (five years after the Life magazine mention) a new book, Haunted Heartland, included a chapter on Summerwind. An excerpt printed in The Milwaukee Journal focused on a brief period in the early 1970s when Arnold and Ginger Hinshaw and their six children lived there. Things didn't go well for the Hinshaws, what with all the ethereal shapes and disembodied voices they saw and heard, windows and doors that opened by themselves and, oh yes, the human skeleton they found in a compartment at the back of a closet. "Within these few months, Arnold was driven mad by ghosts and his wife attempted suicide," the book claims.
Summerwind in the early 20th century
Other owners came and went and stories about unexplainable phenomena multiplied over the years.
Babs Tracy never lived in the house, but said one night she and her husband were camping outside and saw the mansion breathing, or appearing to get larger with inhalations. "People always say, 'Do you believe in ghosts?' And I didn't until we bought the house. We've had way too many unexplained experiences out there," she said. She and Harold have another home nearby on Black Oak Lake.
Craig Nehring, of Berlin but soon moving to Boulder Junction, has turned his ghost-detecting devices on Summerwind and has no doubt it remains haunted. One ghost told him it would be okay to rebuild the mansion, he said, and another was picked up on a recorder saying, mysteriously, "Little girl dead is your friend."
He found a copy of the original blueprints and thinks it could cost $500,000 or more to create a bed and breakfast on the site. Fundraisers are planned, but as yet it's unknown where that kind of money will come from. "Who knows?" Babs said. "Up in the Northwoods there's a lot of money. I'm hoping someone will come along and say, 'Well, I'll fund it.'"
Summerwind's next-door neighbor said she wonders if it can be done. Cheryl and Allan Janny moved up north from Oconomowoc. They own Janny's Black Oak Inn in Land O' Lakes. What Cheryl does know is that she could do without the constant parade of curious and sometimes troublesome visitors to the neighborhood. They're noisy and they tear up the dirt road leading to the property. Some carry off chunks of the foundation or other souvenirs, despite a strong rumor this causes bad luck. "It's a nuisance actually," she said. "We have people coming all the time. They bring it up every year at Halloween." For the record, she has seen no evidence of friendly or malevolent spirits at Summerwind. Tell that to Life magazine, I might suggest, but it, too, is now a ghost.
Source: Jim Stingl, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, October 30, 2014.
