Maybe We're Doing TOO Good Of a Job...

While our building is over 100 years old (it was originally constructed as a commercial laundry), it's never been officially (or unoffcially) documented as having any sort of paranormal history. At least not until The Baxter Avenue Morgue opened its doors...

I've spoken with two of our cast members who've turned quite serious when telling me that they'd seen either a shadow (where no one was standing) or caught a glimpse of a shadowy figure peering at them from around a corner. Our handyman/overnight security (who spends the nights in our dressing room during the operating season) has also remarked that he's heard footsteps during the night when he knows full well that he's the ONLY person in the building. There have also been two seperate occasions when a group of patrons would be brought in and a member would become somewhat agitated and remark that they were "sensitive" to spiritual activity and that they were getting some MAJOR vibes from the building. And then there's the one scene known as "The Gurney Room" (a mostly dirt-floored room with wooden ceiling beams that seems to stretch waaay back), where EVERYONE gets the feeling that they're being watched.

There are stories on-line about cast members of the Disney haunted mansions in California and Florida seeing things that they couldn't explain and these buildings are fairly recent structures. Are these shadows and strange sounds the result of overactive imaginations fueled by the props and scenery, or, like ducks attracted to a decoy, could wandering spirits be drawn to the sounds and energy of a haunted attraction? (Stop and consider for a moment that we're located just a block and a half down the street from two of the larger, older cemetaries in town...)

Sincerely,

Warren Vanderdark;
Owner & Head Mortician,
The Baxter Avenue Morgue,
Louisville,Ky.

www.baxtermorgue.com

one of my friends owned a restuarant and it was "haunted" and the ghost didn't do anything to hurt thier business or damage thier property. The worst thing he ever did was lock one of the employees inside the building by herself. So I would say yes! Just because you could add that to your slogan. For example

~Haunted Mansion~
Visit the place where REAL ghosts reside!

just my two cents,
Sean

Makes me want to come to your haunt.

The Ravens Grin Inn was built around 1870 and has been haunted since at least 1925.
My customers have seen this amazing special effect that I don't know how to create. It's a lady materializing from the corner of the wine cellar which is a soild rock room under the ground.
Advertising your haunt as "Haunted" will be a two-edged sword because some people will never step a foot inside of such a structure, some will be drawn to it, but probably not enough to replace the ones staying away.
People interested in the supernatural will want to hear all about it, want to spend more time in that room to soak up the vibes or to wait to see if something will happen, none of which meshes well with "Scare Forward" thinking or throughput necessitys.
An open mind will also be a necessity when hearing some of your haunted customer's storys. Please don't be too judgemental.
If you have never had any sort of a supernatural experience being critical of those who have is a basic human failing.
I remind myself that my personal experiences might not sound very plausable to another person listening to me talking about my own, so why should I sit in judgement when it comes to them and their stories?
Certain people have alot of ghostly things happening to them because "they" are haunted.
I have had alot of very interesting storys told to me, most of them are very believable...but not all of them....

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jim Warfield

The Ravens Grin Inn was built around 1870 and has been haunted since at least 1925.
My customers have seen this amazing special effect that I don't know how to create. It's a lady materializing from the corner of the wine cellar which is a soild rock room under the ground.
Advertising your haunt as "Haunted" will be a two-edged sword because some people will never step a foot inside of such a structure, some will be drawn to it, but probably not enough to replace the ones staying away.
People interested in the supernatural will want to hear all about it, want to spend more time in that room to soak up the vibes or to wait to see if something will happen, none of which meshes well with "Scare Forward" thinking or throughput necessitys.
An open mind will also be a necessity when hearing some of your haunted customer's storys. Please don't be too judgemental.
If you have never had any sort of a supernatural experience being critical of those who have is a basic human failing.
I remind myself that my personal experiences might not sound very plausable to another person listening to me talking about my own, so why should I sit in judgement when it comes to them and their stories?
Certain people have alot of ghostly things happening to them because "they" are haunted.
I have had alot of very interesting storys told to me, most of them are very believable...but not all of them....

---

Do you own The Ravens Grin Inn?? If so, lemme know. Is it really haunting?

You caught me, I'm just a Jim Warfield impersonator, one of several hundred all hired and trained to pretend to be him by Mr. Tuxedo.

I would have to say advertising your place is haunted will bring more people than turn them away. There are too many people now adays looking for a thrill! Or wanting to learn the unexplained. Just look at all the ghost hunting shows on nowadays and everything! Someone is watching these shows and keeping them on. Jim Warfield isnt closing his doors after 20 plus years. Lemp Mansion in St. Louis has an amazing business. These places and others do well from not hiding the fact they are haunted. My haunt did well from advertising it was haunted!
Damon

I am usually quick to point out that I can not guarantee that someone will have a supernatural encounter here. Watch out for leaving yourself open to claims of false advertising.
A customer once told me of some kind of a haunted house they paid money to be taken through, there was a group of people in one room, the host said, "Often you can tell if a room is haunted because you feel a strange chill in the room, a cold spot."
They noticed a small jagged hole in the ceiling above them, they had a small flashlight to point in the hole and there was a very small electric fan running blowing air down the back of people's necks!
Undoubtedly a ghost could have only placed that fan there, wired it up. ghosts need some mechanical/electrical help sometimes, they get tired too.
I am sure the ghost was watching from behind the fan he installed pharting ghost pharts haunting the entire room.

I was told about a ghost show where admission was $35.00 a person, they loaded up a van full of customers , drove them across town to the haunted building, sat everyone around the round table, then the host stood up, pointing up the open stairway and said."Look! It's The Lady In RED!"
Of course that darn pesky Lady wouldn't materialize for anyone but the guy with all that money bulging his pocket, you know , the guy who took $35.00 from each person in the room.
The weight of the money pulling down no doubt restricted blood flow to the part of the brain that refuses to see the supernatural plain so with that out of the way he could see her, if he had been really thinking he would have had everyone takeing turns holding all the money in their pockets so they could have seen her too!

It's a beautiful sunny day. I see a person walking around in the parking lot on the west side of my house (it's a public parking lot, I don't own it)
I walk toward them, I notice an air of apprehension about them but I see this alot until I talk to them a short while about my house.
They say few words, never making eye contact with me, always looking at my house, then they might say something like, "Are there really ghosts in there?"
"Yes but they don't really hurt or bother anyone in any big way."
Then with an unblinking stare at the house they say, "Somebody should burn that house down, it's satan's house, I can feel it."
No smile is forthcoming, they are not joking at all.
I have met people following this script of promised destruction who were only ten years old and those twenty-five years old. Some seemed to be of "Diminished Capacity", some seemed to not be diminished at all.
Granted I have maybe only met about five people like this in 20 years , but it only takes one..doesn't it.
By daring to be as different as we are, providing unusual nocturnal entertainment we brand ourselves in some people's eyes as being worthy of destruction, you know, just to be doing God's work, making the planet a better place we and ours should be sacrificed, at the hand of them doing the deed.("God" said.)
I have been slandered as being a "satanist", an owner of a meth lab (yes, right here in my house, a block and a half from the County Sherriff's office!) Duh!?
"God" does speak to some of us.
If "God" tells you to destroy someone that the rest of society doesn't have much of a problem tolerating, look more closely at your "God"...see any horns hiding in the hairline?

Over the past year and a half, The Baxter Avenue Morgue has become the pet project/training ground for a local group called Louisville Paranormal Investigations. They've determined after spending numerous hours taking temperature reading, infrared photographs, night-vision photography and EVPs, that we are indeed, HAUNTED.

They've determined that we currently play host to 5 spirits, two women, one foul-tempered male and two of indeterminate gender, as well as an indescribable little poltergeist-like creature that a visiting psychic has identified as calling itself "Arch" (who delights in tormenting one particular cast member). We also seem to have spirits occasionally wander in from the two cemeteries just down the street, as if they were wanting to see what was going on.

I've attended some of their investigative sessions and have felt and icy cold blast blow past my arm in MID-JULY in an un-air conditioned room and have had two EVPs address me by my given name ...