So, yeah, I’m writing this book about a haunted mansion located in St. Louis. It is a rather legendary mansion and the story behind it, even without the ghosts, is one that should really be told. The story is that of the Lemp brewery dynasty which dominated the brewing world and St. Louis in general for a time in the 1800s and early 1900s. The fact that you probably don’t know the name Lemp and how it connects to the beer you may be drinking is probably an indication to you that things did not go very well for the Lemp folks.

The Lemp mansion sits just across I-55 from the Anheuser-Busch brewery. I-55 nearly goes right through the mansion and, in fact, nearly did go right through the mansion if not for a few maneuverings that prevented that a long time ago. If you have plans of going to St. Louis and you have an interests in ghosts, hauntings, old mansions or historical sites you need to visit this mansion. It is a restaurant so you can eat lunch or dinner there. There is a dinner theater that I hear is a lot of fun. Finally, it is a bed and breakfast and that is the one I took advantage of.

I met a wonderful woman named Betsy who conducts ghost tours of the place on Monday nights. I highly recommend you do this part of the Lemp mansion. It’s $15 for the tour and, in my opinion, worth every penny. Betsy is a woman who claims to be clairvoyant and able to talk to spirits. She does a lot of work at supposedly haunted places around St. Louis and conducts tours with many of them. The Lemp, however, is a special place and holds a special place in her heart.

Now, I am not here to say one way or another that Betsy is clairvoyant. I don’t know if she is talking to spirits or herself. I just know that she is a very nice woman who was willing to talk with me. She is a showman and holds an audience in the palm of her hand. Plus, she lets you experience some things that, if they are tricks, are ones you should really experience yourself.

We checked in just before 4:00 pm. There were others spending the night that night but we essentially had the place to ourselves. The Lemp is a large place that goes up three floors, back nearly to the highway, and then there is the basement. The whole grounds used to be even bigger and included huge limestone caves that had pools and a theater and a ball room. Much of that is gone now.

The mansion is nearly 200 years old. Right away, as soon as you get into the place, after climbing the steps and gazing at the white front and the many, many windows that look out onto the streets, highway and parking lot like vacant eyes, there is a major creep-out factor.

I stayed in the very large, very beautiful William Lemp suite. This is named after William Lemp Senior, a man who helped the company grow to nearly epic proportions before shooting himself in the head in the very room where I slept after the tragic death of his son Frederick. His wife, Julia, died of cancer in what is now the parlor of this room.

Across the hall from that is the Lavender Suite. This is a large suite complete with a bathroom and is named after Lillian Lemp, the wife of William Lemp, Jr. She had a penchant for wearing lavender and was known as “The Lavender Lady.”

Down the hall is the Charles Lemp suite. This is a smaller room but very nice. The bathroom is across the hall. Charles was the last Lemp to own the house and he shot his beloved dog, Serva, first before shooting himself in the head possibly in that room or possibly in the area that now serves as the bar downstairs.

Up in the attic there used to be one bedroom and nothing else. It is the attic that supposedly is the most haunted. The tales of why are too long for a single article. They have done some remodeling, however. Now there are three rooms including the Elsa Lemp suite. The Elsa Lemp suite is reportedly the most haunted suite in the entire inn. This is where my friends Scott and Jessica spent the night. The views are spectacular. All of the rooms up there are smaller, but very nice and each has their own bathroom.

We spent a while looking around. It was still sunny. So, while things were creepy, the true creepiness would not descend until the sun did. I noticed in my room a portrait of a barefoot peasant girl on the wall. The eyes of this painting were the scariest thing I had seen yet. The eyes were intense and, yes, followed you all around the room. We took a few pictures of that.

The Lemp is cluttered, littered, bursting with mirrors. There are mirrors everywhere. There are mirrors on walls set up across from other mirrors. I don’t know if this is some kind of effect the owners are going for or not. I just know if you don’t like your own reflection, or perhaps you are a vampire, the Lemp Mansion may not be for you.

We went out to dinner. We then went back to the inn. We settled in the William Lemp suite. My friend Jessica talked about how she wanted people to go on “missions.” This was something that Jessica and Scott had done the last time they had stayed at the mansion. Yes, my friends have been here before. In fact, this time around, was their third trip to the mansions. If there are ghosts, by this point, they know my friends by name.

The mission game is you send someone to some part of the house, such as the basement, and tell them to retrieve something from down there that would prove that they had been there. When the item was brought back it would then be up to the next person to return the object back to where it had been found. Her son, Dylan, agreed to be the first person to undertake a mission. His mission was to go down into the basement and retrieve a centerpiece from one of the tables down there.

So, as the sun set, Dylan set about his task….

Part Two will be tomorrow.

Bryan W. Alaspa’s new novel Dust is now available at his website www.bryanalaspa.com and www.amazon.com.