Victorian House
This story isabsolutely true. Back in the late fifties, I had a job with awaterproofing company in Atlanta known as Surface Coatings. I wasthe Florida representative, and I travelled the state fromPensacola all the way down to Miami, calling on establisheddealers of a waterproofing product we manufactured..
Over the years, it was occasionally necessary for me to drive upto Atlanta for some business need, and I would spend a few dayswith my family, and over the weekend, normally on a Fridaymorning, I would drive down US 19 from Atlanta to Tampa, arrivingthere in the late afternoon, in order to be on hand for my tripsthat always began on Mondays to various dealers in the state.
This particular Friday morning, I was driving down 19, somewherebelow Griffin, Ga., exact spot never remembered exactly, and Iwas passing one little town after another, passing to the west ofMacon, and on down towards the Florida line.
It was a sunny summer morning, and I slowed as I neared yetanother little town where the pace of living was much slower thanthat I was used to. As I came into the northern edge of the town,some quarter of a mile outside the city limits, I found abeautiful, deserted old Victorian mansion sitting off to the leftside of the road, backed up by a still standing carriage house.There was an ancient Oak tree standing in the front yard. It'slimbs reaching out some fifty feet or so in all directions.
With no one waiting for me in Tampa, I decided to stop and walkaround the house, and since it's door was open, possibly walkinto it to see how it's grandeur of some seventy years before hadsurvived.
Parking beside the house, I got and walked around to the frontyard, and after taking in the particular beauty of all oldVictorians, I stepped up on the porch and walked into the foyerof the house. The floor was covered with an old, old carpet, andthere were pieces of furniture standing here and there. Over tothe door to my right, that opened into the parlor, stood anantique chair that was used years ago to hang umbrellas and suchon, with a section built into it to hold boots, galoshes, etc.
The house was cold inside, and this surprised me. It was a summermorning, and the temperature outside was in the 80-90 degreerange. The foyer opened into a wide reception area, somethinglike twenty feet wide, and from either side of the room in frontof me, two matched stairs climbed in a lazy arc to the landing ofthe second floor above me. But it was all approaching decay.
Walking into the parlor, the floor became spongy and soft, and Ibecame aware of a malevolent atmosphere forming. Even now, fortyodd years later, the hair on my arms and back of my neck raisesas I remember it. Feeling threatened, I spoke to the house, orwhoever was there, in this manner.
"Hold on a minute. I mean no harm. I only stopped to drinkin the beauty of this wonderful old house. If I'm not wanted,I'll leave."
And I did. Outside, before I drove away, I drove back to thestables and found that there were still buggies present in thestalls. I was amazed that anyone would have allowed such awonderful old house to fall into such a state of disrepair.
I drove around to the front of the house, stopping in the barefront yard under the Oak tree, and looked again at the beauty ofthis badly neglected, once magnificent old mansion. Then I droveon towards Tampa.
In later years, I tried again and again to find this house inthis little town as I drove south towards Florida, and I couldnever find it again. The town was and is there, alright, but thehouse is simply gone.
I would have thought no more about it, except for the fact that afriend who knows of my unexpected ghostly encounters asked meabout some house I had mentioned years before when I was workingin Florida. I repeated this story to her, and to my surprise, shesaid she had seen the same house. She too had been impressed byit's decaying beauty, and she and her husband had stopped amoment to look at it.
The unique thing about all of this is that I was looking for thathouse after I first saw it back in 1957. She's many years youngerthan I am, and she's seen it in the past twenty years herself.Not just her alone, but her husband as well.
I've never seen it again. I looked for it for two years. I neverfound it. She saw it on a trip to Florida back in 1987. Wheredoes it go? Why is it sometimes there, and other times there'sonly a vacant field, and the tree too, is missing. She states thetree was there in the front of the house, in the yard, just as Idescribed it.
I don't know the answer to this one. Has anyone else seen thissometimes there, sometimes not there Victorian mansion? Is itreally there at all?
What do you think?