Haunted Houses, стр. 38
Ever the collector, Hammond Jr. also complemented this architectural opulence with his immense collection of artifacts spanning the Roman Empire and the Medieval and Renaissance eras. As historians recount, he was once told that, if he brought architectural relics back into a home, he could have the power to raise the spirits of their original owners.
Thus, his home includes a panoply of odd artifacts: a skull from a crew-member of Christopher Columbus; ancient tombstones and Roman sarcophagi that have been embedded into the walls like macabre art pieces; ancient chests, organs, and harpsicords; and six-hundred-year-old medieval beds.
Certainly the most notable rooms in the house are the one-hundred-foot-long Great Hall—which features an organ with 8,400 pipes—and an interior courtyard inspired by the one built by prolific art collector Isabella Stewart Gardner. The courtyard’s centerpiece is a thirty-thousand-gallon, nine-foot-deep pool, with water dyed bright green to disguise its depths (and we’ll get to that shortly).
Upon moving into the magnificent estate with his wife, Irene, Hammond Jr. continued with his tinkering and inventing, which became ever more focused on the supernatural. He held seances for guests and regularly employed his “Faraday cage” to test would-be mediums. The device was ultimately bulky and dangerous—it permanently burned holes in the floor due to the significant amount of heat it generated as it worked to block any outside energy sources.
He owned numerous books on the occult, as well, kept a number of cats—long revered, from the ancient Chinese to the Egyptians, for their metaphysical attributes—and often proclaimed his wishes to be reincarnated as one.
But those examples merely hint at his many idiosyncratic attributes and morbid antics.
Unlike many of us, he didn’t at all shy away from the notion of death. Notably, he loved the evening hours. Graham Bell, in fact, suggested he work at night and sleep during the day. He took the advice and, as a result, many staff, overnight guests, and even his wife would go long periods of time without seeing him. Along with this night owl mentality, some remember him wandering his courtyard in a long monk’s robe with the cowl drawn.
His character oddities were not limited to nighttime antics: He occasionally lunched on the roof of an Aztec-like tomb and was known to ask visitors if they’d like to see where he would be buried—in an above-ground mausoleum on the property. It is said that in that sepulcher, whose steps run from the tomb door to the sea, he is interred with Siamese cats preserved in formaldehyde. So another rumor goes, the inside doors of his tomb are outfitted with locks—to keep intruders out—and he supposedly also stipulated in his will that poison ivy be planted around his grave. Thus, in death, just as in life, he wished to come and go as he pleased, and to be unperturbed in doing so.
At ease with nudity as with death, Hammond Jr. was known to frequently swim naked in his courtyard pool. He also commissioned an anatomically-correct statue of himself—his wife, mortified, hired a sculptor to conceal the statue’s genitals with a fig leaf. If you happened to be one of the many visitors to his stunning palatial home gracing the precipice of the Atlantic, you would be in for many surprises.
Terrorizing visitors, in fact, was one of Hammond’s favorite pastimes. For instance, in one guest room, he had a doorway layered over with wallpaper, so that, when closed, it was indistinguishable from the adjoining walls. In the middle of the night, aided by one of his many remote controls, the sly inventor liked to close the door in the event that guests left it open to allow in radiant heat—so that, upon awakening, those unsuspecting visitors would be frantic and trapped.
Meanwhile, in the library, the round domed ceiling caught and amplified sound, allowing him to eavesdrop and later share what he heard to embarrass his company; he also loved to tell visitors that his pool was only a few feet deep—although it did, in actuality, extend nine feet down—before brashly, and to their astonishment, diving in.
That courtyard’s most unusual feature, though, was its weather system—it had lights and pipes that allowed Hammond to summon sunlight, moonlight, fog, even a heavy downpour if he so desired. If he felt that guests were lingering too long, they might suddenly find themselves drenched.
Some say his antics didn’t stop when he—or at least his earthly form—did.
After his death in 1965 at age seventy-seven, visitors and staff alike reported strange echoes and the squeak of soft-soled shoes on stone floors (perhaps Hammond Jr. sneaking up on them, or plotting his next prank). Irene, for her part, was said to suffer depression throughout her life; she became reclusive, painting the walls of her bedroom with lush scenes, then fencing them in with a wide railing to represent her mental torment. She passed away in 1959 while in her late seventies, but has been seen peering out of the castle windows, notably the one overlooking the courtyard pool.
As they did during Hammond’s lifetime, stray cats continue to wander without hesitation into the castle and take up residence. In one well-circulated story, not long after the proprietor’s death, a large black cat was seen sauntering in, navigating the castle’s passages as if it were already intimately familiar with them. It then bounded up and nestled into one of Hammond’s favorite chairs.
There are numerous other unaccounted-for phenomena: Uninvited guests are said to wander the property, suddenly vanishing when approached;