The Tape Library - Archive of the Paranormal & the Unexplained - The Horrifying True Story of Summerwind Mansion

Episode Date: January 30, 2025

Abandoned, eerie, and shrouded in mystery—Summerwind Mansion is one of the most infamous haunted houses in America. Once a beautiful estate, it became a hotspot for ghostly activity, strange voices, and horrifying encounters that drove its owners away. What caused this serene mansion to turn into a place of fear? We uncover the mansion’s history, its spine-chilling hauntings, and the legends that still surround it today. Support the channel with Patreon - www.patreon.com/thetapelibrary Special thanks to Mystery Archives!   Do you have a supernatural story to share? Drop me an email at [e-mail] You can check out The Tape Library in video form at www.youtube.com/thetapelibrary Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thetapelibrary Tiktok - https://www.tiktok.com/@thetapelibrary Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/people/The-Tape-Library/100094332411836/ Archive of the Paranormal, the strange and the unexplained. The Tape Library brings you the creepiest stories, to keep you horror junkies up all night. True scary stories of ghosts, cryptids, UFOs and true crime. Additional footage and audio from Evanto, Singularity, Midjourney and Pexels.  All other footage used under fair use. CHAPTERS 00:00 Summerwind Mansion 02:09 Welcome to The Tape Library 02:57 The Lamont Mansion 05:41 The Haunting Begins 07:30 The Last Night 09:34 The Keefers 11:34 The Hinshaws 14:26 The Blueprints 15:59 Not Alone 17:53 Changing 19:25 Hole in the Wall 22:45 Woman in White 25:40 Dark Thoughts 28:17 The Story Continues 31:11 A House of Leaves 32:29 Alone 34:35 Hypnosis 37:10 Shattered Memories 40:35 Carver 42:35 The Summerwind Fire 44:36 Lilac Lucy W/ Mystery Archives 51:05 What Really Happened? 56:02 Wrapping Up Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Never forget their faces. And I've never talked to them again. What area of the house you were in, you were watched. He quit talking. You wouldn't answer a question. He kept looking around the rooms. He kept walking around the rooms.

I didn't tell them what happened. I didn't tell him what I had seen. Ginger lay there, wondering how it had gotten to this point. The gentle sounds of the lake, lapping at the nearby shore, the tree branches providing her a kind of natural ceiling, the moon shining down from above. But this wasn't a camping trip. Ginger was curled up on the dirty ground below, desperately trying to stay warm. She needed sleep. She was so desperate for sleep. She looked up, staring through the tree line, at her house, inside all her family, her bedroom,

her bed. But she couldn't bring herself to go back inside. It's not like she would be getting any sleep in there either anyway. And at least out here she was safe. But that was when it hit her. She was safe. Her children on the other hand were still inside with it. Whatever it was. Yet still she couldn't bring herself to stand up and walk back inside. Just one more night sleeping in the woods. Just one more. Once I can finally get some sleep, I can figure out what to do. My mind will be clear. I will find a solution to the nightmare that is our home.

Inside no one else was asleep either. In their bed the children lay there, covering their ears and crying. Downstairs her husband hammered on the keys of his organ, sweating, screaming, lost to madness. Tonight we're heading down to the land of lakes for a good old-fashioned haunted house story. And who knows, maybe a friend might come along for the ride. Welcome to the tape library. Get yourself a warm drink, dim the lights and get comfortable. This is the terrifying story of the Summer Wind Mansion.

Before we jump into this, I haven't asked this question for a long time, so I'm curious about the responses. Have you ever experienced something that you believe could be paranormal? You don't have to give a detailed answer, but I'd love to hear at least a yes or no in the comments below. If you want to share your story after the episode, though, please feel free. It's always nice when someone brings a little tale to our digital campfire here. Okay, where to start with Summerwind? I would say we would start at the beginning, although, as with many aspects of this tale, that is a little unclear. We know the beginnings of the house itself, but what if something was already there, tainting the very land it stood on?

Well, that is a little harder to answer, but hopefully we can get into that a little later. It wasn't always known as Summerwind. In fact, for the longest time, it was known as the old Lamont mansion, due to the house's original owner, Robert Patterson Lamont. LeMont was a wealthy and very successful man from Detroit, Michigan. 1800s, Lamont moved to Chicago. There he met his wife, Helen Gertrude Trotter, and together they had three children. Due to his work as vice president of the Simplex Railway Appliance Company, Lamont often found himself travelling between the busy streets of Chicago to the equally chaotic halls of Washington, D.C., a place where he would make many connections. But

Lamont needed an escape from this life. He wanted somewhere quiet and clean to raise his children, And that is when he set his heart on the idea of a lavish summer getaway, somewhere that could be his sanctuary away from the life that he was currently leading. That is when he discovered Lander Lakes. Although it wouldn't have been called that back in 1916, when LeMont first discovered the place. It was a small town in Wisconsin on the banks of a beautiful series of lakes. The population, especially back then, was tiny, but Land of Lakes have become a popular destination. for the wealthy to escape the city.

It was while there that he found a beautiful plot of land on the banks of West Bay Lake. At the time it was being used to house a hotel and four small cottages for summer vacations. But LeMont instantly got the vision in his mind of a grand, beautiful mansion that he could call his own. LeMont purchased the land from the family that owned it and hired an architectural firm from Chicago to build it. After two years, it was complete. a beautiful building containing 20 rooms and multiple outbuildings scattered across the land that cost LeMont $125,000 to complete. He called it Lilac Hills. LeMont was immensely proud of this home, even inviting President Warren G. Harding to come and stay.

Lamont's personal successes would continue to grow while owning Summerwind, seeing him ultimately become the Secretary of Commerce for President Herbert Hoover. he would be one of the few residents to not apparently suffer, the supposed curse of this mansion. While the Lamont spent many happy years in the mansion, there was always the small niggling that something was wrong. Very quickly after moving in, the family hired several servants, many of whom stayed in the outbuildings, to maintain the property. It all started with smells. The servants would come to Helen and tell her they kept smelling odd odours, coming from the inside of the mansion but could never identify the source of the smells. Then there were the sounds. Whispers in the halls, footsteps where no one should be. The maids quickly began talking

about how they believed that the house was haunted, but Robert's wife simply laughed off these suggestions. The house was brand new. How on earth could it be haunted if such a thing were even possible? The Lamonts never gave much credence to these claims by their servants, although Although you have to wonder what they experienced themselves. Did they hear the sounds? Did they smell the odours? Did they feel the sense that they were being watched wherever they went? We don't know and the reason for that is that Robert Lamont apparently never liked to talk

about his experience of living at Lilac Hills, this beautiful mansion that he loved so dearly. And in fact in the 1930s, the Lamont family abandoned the mansion. to return. The incident that led to the Lamont's leaving has been a part of the folklore of Summerwind for so long now, the origin of its is lost to time. Apparently the reason this story exists though is that Lamont told a few of his drinking buddies the tale of what happened on that last night and then never told another soul until his death in 1948. The Lamont family had owned the mansion for around 15 years at this point. It was one night in the early 1930s. Robert and Helen were sitting alone in their kitchen. They had just returned from a meal

and were having a dessert at the table before heading off to bed. Helen paused for a moment. Robert asked what was wrong, but she shrugged it off and said nothing. They continued eating before she then suddenly stopped again. She was sure this time. She had heard something. Helen glanced around the room. Then she heard it again. Loud of this time. Loud enough that Robert noticed it too. It was the door to the basement. It was rattling.

The pair didn't say a word at first. They just stared at the basement door, curious as to what could be making the sound. When it suddenly began to shake, violently, someone was trying to get through the basement door and up into the kitchen. Robert jumped up and grabbed his pistol, slowly edging towards the door.

Its handle jolting up and down. The hinges almost buckling, from the force of whatever it was pushing on it. Helen hid behind her husband. Robert shouted out to ask who was there, but there was no response, just more violent shaking. Then the door swung open. The Lamonts couldn't believe what they were seeing. Robert later described the sight to his drinking buddies. As a gould. It looked like a man but tall, much too tall to be human. Its dark, shadowy form blocked out the entire doorway into the basement. It appeared to be wearing clothes, but they were all black, and the entire thing seemed to drift and sway, as though it were made from

smoke. Helen screamed in terror and Robert didn't hesitate. He fired two shots into the entity that seemed to just pass through it, hit in the partially open door instead. The Lamont turned and ran, gathering their family and quickly leaving the property. Never to return. There seems to be some confusion about the status of the property throughout the remaining years of the 1930s. It's commonly said that LeMont refused to sell the property, leaving it empty as it slowly began to rot. The family had left numerous antiques and belongings behind, that were all pinched by vandals and thieves, who discovered that the mansion had been left. The Lamonts didn't seem to care though, it was as if this once-beloved home was dead to them now. However, images exist in a brochure, offering people this house.

chance to rent out Lillac Hills. The pictures show the mansion as it looked in the 1930s, although it is possible the brochures from later and was just using an old photo. Generally though it appears that the mansion stood empty until Robert Lamont passed away and the Kiefer family purchased the estate from the remaining Lamont's. If the Kiefer family ever lived in the property is also a little unclear, but they are said to be the first recorded victims of the curse of Summerwind. Within six months of owning the property. Mr. Kiefer dropped dead unexpectedly. The family couldn't afford the upkeep of the land so Miss Kiefer began selling off sections of the estate to different buyers. By the time the

1960s rolled round, all that remained in her possession was the land the old Le Mont Mansion stood on, but it wasn't through lack of trying. Miss Kiefer kept trying to sell the mansion time and time again, but every time the new buyers wouldn't be able to keep up with the repayments, and the home would revert back to her ownership. It was as though she could get rid of every part of Lilac Hills, except the mansion for some reason. It seemed like Miss Kiefer wasn't especially fond of the property, although she would never reveal why. It appeared she was fearful to even step into it. She would take prospective buyers to the house, hand them the keys and leave them to tour the property themselves. No one who came to Summerwind has ever said that Miss Kiefer accompanied them on the tour.

In the summer of 1969, Ginger Hinshaw was visiting a friend in the area, much like Lamont all those years earlier. Ginger had fallen in love with the land of lakes and was desperate to find herself a home here. She couldn't believe it when her friend took her to see Summerwind. It was run down at this point, a shadow of its former splendor. But for a house this size, it was a total bargain. Ginger had recently remarried and she saw this as the perfect place to make a new star. Her friend, however, warned her. That the house had been mostly empty for 40 years,

and that the locals had a lot of stories about the property. To the extent that they would refer to it as the old haunted house, Ginger smiled to herself, not taking these stories too seriously, and said, Well, I guess I'm going to be living in a haunted house. Not long after this, Ginger returned with her husband, Arnold, and four children in tow to come and see the house. Miss Kiefer stayed in her car on the drive but handed the keys over to the couple to take a look around.

Arnold, who owned his own construction business, was as taken by the property as Ginger had been. It was stunning. He knew it would need a lot of work, but for the price this was a no-brainer. They had to buy this house. Ginger's nine-year-old daughter, April, though, had a very different view when she walked in. In later life, she spoke about her first impressions of entering the mansion. Its walls stripped of paint and wallpaper. Its floors bare and dirty. It was huge but dingy and decrepit. She couldn't understand why her mother was so obsessed with the place.

From the second she entered, it didn't feel like home. In fact, something inside her told her that they shouldn't be there at all. They were not welcome. Within a month the family moved in. There was a lot of work to do but with a little help, Arnold and Ginger were sure they could get the place. place back in shape quickly, but that was where they ran into their first hurdle. They would contact local tradesmen to come and work on the property. Time and time again they found that the contractors were up for the work, until they told them the address. Then they would suddenly make an excuse why they couldn't do it, or simply not turn up on the day they were due to begin work. Even getting supplies to the

house seemed odd. Delivery drivers wouldn't even drive up the path to the house itself. instead just leaving packages at the gate outside. It was as if none of the locals even wanted to step near the old Lamont mansion, but the newly married couple weren't afraid of a bit of hard work and set about fixing up the mansion themselves anyway. They restored the fireplace mantle, wallpapered all the rooms, and began restoring the hardwood floors.

It was during this time that Ginger made an unusual discovery. She was looking through one of the built-in wardrobes in an upstairs room, when she found a large rolled-up piece of paper. She unraveled it to discover the original blueprints of the mansion, but strangely, there was a Native American piece pipe within the rolled-up blueprints. A little strange, but she had heard stories about how the previous owners had filled the home with many interesting artifacts. This apparently was just one of the few that wasn't looted over its derelict years.

The blueprints, though, seemed to have a more profound impact on Ginger. After looking at them, she said her attitude towards fixing up the house changed. This wasn't just about making a nice home for her family anymore. Ginger claimed that she became practically obsessed with restoring the mansion, to its former self, making it identical to the home the Lamonza created. She would spend days comparing paints, trying to find the right one that matched what little still remained on the walls. She said it was like something was guiding her.

as though she were no longer in full control of how she decorated the rooms. Interestingly, at the same time, Arnold's interest in restoring the house took the complete opposite direction. He became increasingly unenthusiastic about the whole thing. Ginger noted that he was constantly distracted. He would go to do a job but couldn't keep his focus on that task for more than a few minutes. But Ginger seemingly didn't care. She was single-minded and carried on the work that she felt needed to do needed to be done. Soon after moving in, the children began coming to Ginger, saying they felt scared in the house. They claimed it felt like they were being watched at all times, as though they were never alone in any room of the mansion. Ginger would have likely just brushed this off

as just the children being unsettled by the move. But she too had begun to notice things. Chairs would seem to move across the kitchen floor when no one was looking, and she too felt like she was never truly alone in the house, but it wasn't just a feeling. She would hear the creaking of floorboards as though someone were walking around upstairs. She could easily pass this off as the noises of an old house, but the whispering behind the closed doors was a little harder to explain. She would become convinced that she could hear voices in the rooms upstairs, but when she looked inside, no one would be in there. But surely, it was just a talk of ghosts messing with her mind, and that's what she told herself, even when

she started to notice the shadows, moving out of the corner of her eyes. Arnold noticed them too, as though something were just moving out of the corner of his eye, but when he looked there was nothing there. They would often see lights flickering, and he kind of assumed that was the cause, just faulty electrics. Appliances would often break, but when he would go to fix them, they would work fine again. What couldn't be explained by the electrics of the house, though, was what had happened to the car. Arnold was leaving the house to go to a job. When he stepped out of the front door, though, his car that was just a few feet away from him,

burst into flames. Luckily, he wasn't hurt, but the car was destroyed. They never did find a reason for why it had happened. Arnold was not entertained in the idea of ghosts, though. but ever since he had moved into that house, his personality had completely flipped. He was becoming increasingly withdrawn from his family. The interactions he did have with Ginger and the children were increasingly angry. He would often put his tools down while working and turn around to discover they had vanished.

He was convinced it was the children messing with him and he became enraged with them every time it happened. He then started rarely going into work. instead spending most of his time inside the mansion. The only thing that seemed to bring him joy was his music. Arnold had purchased an organ not long before the family had moved in, and he had begun playing it. But strangely, only at night. A common source of Arnold's anger was the window in the master bedroom.

No matter how many times he shut it, it would always be open again when he would return to the room. Initially, Arnold began blaming the children for this too. Then he decided that Ginger was responsible and started yelling at her to stop opening the window. He ultimately nailed it shut. Arnold was convinced that Ginger and the children were messing with him, trying to drive him insane. Ginger meanwhile believed Arnold was the one moving furniture around and hiding tools. If he was doing this deliberately or not, though, she couldn't say.

He seemed so distracted at all times, like his mind was somewhere else. no one seemed to trust each other anymore. One of the stranger reported incidents took place around this time. One summer day, Ginger and Arnold were painting a closet in one of the bedrooms. At the back was a large shoe drawer that had been built into the wall. Arnold pulled it out so he could paint and noticed a large space behind the drawer. He looked inside with his flashlight and jumped back when he saw something. He couldn't believe it, but he turned to Ginger and said,

I think there's something dead in there. They assumed it was an animal, but the space was too small for either of them to get inside. So instead, when the children got home from school, they asked one of the girls, Mary, to crawl inside and take a look. Mary crawled in briefly before screaming in terror. She was quickly pulled out by Arnold and the young girl was in hysterics. She claimed it looked like a person. A human skull, with remnants of hair still attached. It seems very unclear about what the family did with this discovery, but seemingly they never contacted the authorities about this potential corpse that was hidden within their walls.

It was after this event though that things really turned bad. Arnold's anger grew and grew with each passing week. One of the girls, April, described it as though he were possessed. One of the most upsetting moments for the children involved a pet raccoon that they owned. One night it escaped its cage. Arnold was convinced it was in the woods and he demanded that the children go out into the woods in the middle of the night to look for it, claiming it was their fault and that he didn't need this extra stress. When the raccoon was finally found, he apparently killed it to, in his words, teach the kids a lesson.

April said that their stepfather had previously been a kind, caring man, but suddenly it was as if he hated the entire family. He felt like an evil presence in their home. Then Arnold just stopped talking. Ginger would see him walking from room to room, staring at things that weren't there. Arnold was convinced that something was in the home now. Something was toying with him, but he didn't know what it was, or what, it wanted. The only thing that would bring him peace was playing the organ, something he would do loudly at all times of the night. The apparitions began to become more vivid too. One day

Ginger was alone in the house, a rare time that Arnold had actually left, when she became convinced that she heard her voice as she went to walk upstairs, a man's voice, deep and strong, but there was nobody there. Ginger continued walking upstairs. Again, she heard something in the upstairs hall, but she wasn't sure what it was. She checked all the rooms, but no one was there. She then heard the voice again. But this time, it said her name, before seeing what appeared to be some sort of shadowy, human-like figure in the upstairs hall that quickly vanished. This wasn't the only intruder the family were seeing in the home, though.

Desperate for a bit of normality to be restored to their lives. Ginger invited a couple of friends around for an evening of socialising. Everything had been going great, although Arnold had kept himself secluded away in another part of the house. But she didn't mind. She was just grateful for some adult company. Some people, to make this strange fantasy they were creating, feel silly. Ginger had gone to the kitchen to grab some more wine.

When she returned, though, she found her guests quite troubled. There was a set of French doors that led out from this room to the kitchen. While she had been gone, her friends had seen a woman walk past those doors. Ginger's friends hadn't recognised the woman. And when they went to look, there was no one there. Ginger instantly knew who they were talking about. She had hoped she was losing her mind, but she had seen her too. On more than one occasion.

She never looked like a ghost exactly. She looked like a flesh and blood, a human woman. just casually walking past the French doors, as though her and her family weren't even there. Ginger wasn't alone. Multiple members of the family had claimed to see her, but she for some reason didn't truly believe it, until her friends claimed to see her too. Apparently her friends were so freaked out by the incident. They immediately left.

They refused to take Ginger's calls going forward. She was now even more alone. Arnold at this point became truly gone. He would never leave the house. He would play the organ all night so loud it kept the entire family awake. The songs he played were described by the children as weird and dark. He would play random notes one after another, off-kilter and unsettling sounding tunes, that he seemed to be just making up on the spot for hour after hour.

After repeated nights have been unable to sleep, Ginger began begging him to stop, but Arnold said he couldn't. He had to keep playing. The voices he could hear wanted him to keep playing. This was when Ginger began taking herself off into the woods at night. She couldn't explain exactly what had drawn her to them,

but it was likely just a desperate need to escape the constant nighttime racket of Arnold's playing. She too was beginning to lose her mind. The sleep deprivation wasn't helping. Whenever she was in the house, she just felt like something was hanging over her, watching her every.

remove. She heard it whispering to her, moving around just out of sight. What's more, she became convinced that the house was changing. Hallways seemed to grow longer as she walked down them. The walls blurred and shifted. It wasn't possible though. It was all in her head. But she felt safer out in the cold woods than she did inside that house. It was in these nighttime outings, that Ginger's mind went to a darker place. She considered, ending it all, taking her own life. She couldn't handle it anymore. She felt trapped.

She couldn't think straight. How had this all gone so wrong? Ginger didn't know it, but she wasn't the only one feeling this way. April stated in a later interview that she and her sister had both discussed the idea of ending their lives too. The atmosphere in the house was so oppressive that now even the young children were considering. stepping into the void. It was when winter hit that Ginger finally met her breaking point. She remembers the sound of the cold winter wind so vividly

that the sound of wind still scares her to this day. Arnold no longer spoke to anyone. His business was gone, and the family had no money left. The electricity and heating had been cut off due to unpaid bills. A water pump had broken. Arnold was too mentally checked out to fix it, and no contractors would step foot near the house. So Ginger and the children had begun bringing up buckets of water from the lake.

The nights had grown so cold they were forced to bring their mattresses and bedding down to the living room so they could all huddle around the fire. Ginger was also becoming increasingly worried that Arnold would end up hurting one of the children. She had previously been too proud to contact her parents and asked for help. But she knew, looking at her family huddled together for warmth. that this had already gone past the point where things like that mattered. She rang her father and the following day he showed up with a camper van to take Ginger and the children away. April said in a later interview that the moment they stepped out of that house and drove away.

It felt like a war had ended. All the dark thoughts faded away. She was free to simply be a child again. Arnold did not leave with them though. He watched from the window as his new family drove off. into the distance, and he remained in Summerwind. To my knowledge, Arnold has never spoken about what took place in the house publicly. But soon after his family left, he too left Summerwind for good, checking himself into a mental health facility once he was away from the mansion. He and Ginger divorced soon after, but it seemed no one in the family ever saw Arnold in person again, after they left him

behind in that mansion. But this wasn't the end of the Summerwind story. Ginger told her father, Raymond Bober, everything that happened in the house, but he didn't believe a word of it. He knew his daughter and his grandchildren had been for a very real trauma, but ghosts? In his mind, Arnold was just not the man she thought he was when they had gotten married. The man was clearly unwell and his madness had simply affected the rest of them. Ginger, a once sceptic herself though, was now firmly in the believer camp, and over the following years became increasingly obsessed with the paranormal, reading everything she could to try and explain what she had experienced in that mansion. Her father Raymond, however, also became a little

obsessed. For some reason, even though three years had passed, he couldn't seem to get summer wind out of his head either. One day he arranged to go and visit the property, taking a along his son, Ray Jr. as well. The new owner who was already looking to sell the mansion handed Raymond the keys and told him to feel free to look around. She didn't want to get out of the car for some reason. Raymond was instantly captivated by the place. He said it felt like it was in need of love, like a puppy that had been left out in the rain. He had this sensationalable urge to care for it, to look after it, to restore it to its former glory.

Strangely, Ray Jr. would later say he felt the exact same as they toured the mansion. The last three years had not been kind to the property. It had been left empty since Ginger left and the weather had seemingly taken a toll on it. It looked like the property had been abandoned for decades, not just a few years. But Raymond saw potential. He wanted to buy it and turn it into a hotel and restaurant. Ray Jr. had recently got back from Vietnam and his father was keen to find something for his son to work on, to reintegrate him back into normal life.

Between the two of them, they believed they had enough experience to take on this project. But even from the first time walking around the house, Raymond was unable to shake his daughter's stories. It was all just in his mind, but he still noticed that odd feeling, that feeling of being watched. Raymond broke the news to Ginger and she was obviously unimpressed by his plans. The children too were worried, scared for the safety of their uncle and grandfather. But Raymond ignored their concerns and purchased the property.

Soon after Ray Jr. began working on the place. He quickly ran into the same issue that Ginger and Arnold were having. Though other contractors would come out to work on the property, he would be alone for much of this endeavour. also tried to get contractors to come and get involved, but with no luck, Raymond decided to get some initial measurements of the place done, but when he compared the measurements of the rooms to the original blueprint that Ginger had found, he discovered that none of them matched up. In fact, some rooms were double the size listed on the original blueprint, as though the property

had grown since the building had been completed. Stranger still, when he re-measured a room, it came out a slightly different size to what he had initially known. down. Obviously a simple mistake but this kept happening time and time again as if the house were constantly expanding and contracting on any given day being a different size than the previous day, almost as though the house were alive. It was during this time that Raymond came across a sign that red summer wind practically buried in the overgrown bushes outside, suggesting this had been the name of the property at some point, although it's unlawful, clear when this was the case. Either way, this discovery is why the property is referred to as

summer wind today. After discovering the sign, Raymond looked up at the house and noticed. The window in the master bedroom was wide open. Strange, he thought to himself. He was sure he remembered shutting it. Ray Jr. was planning to work on the place for a few days, so he took his father's camper van with him. The house was too run down, so he decided he would sleep in the camper van at night. and worked during the day. He worked throughout that first day without any incidents. But that evening, he was sitting outside the van enjoying a beer, when he became convinced that he heard a growl.

Ray Jr. froze, desperately trying to keep an ear out for the sound. And sure enough, it came again, clearer this time. It was 100% a growl, and it was close. Convinced that it must be bears, Ray Jr. locked himself in the campavan that night. The next day a thunderstorm hit the area, and Ray Jr. was left on his own on a miserable, rainy day, inside Summerwind. But the sounds didn't stop. In fact, they got stranger. Ray Jr. began to follow one of the sounds. A few hours later, Ray Jr. walked into his father's home. Raymond Arr. his son what he was doing back there. He'd been planning to stay at Summerwind for a few days.

Ray Jr. got extremely sheepish and didn't want to talk about it. Simply claiming that all his tools weren't working and that he was unable to do anything before rushing off into the other room. Raymond knew that something was wrong with his son. First Ginger, now Ray Jr. Something was off about Summerwind and he wanted to get to the bottom of it. He ended up getting in touch with the prior owner and she was happy to lay out what she knew about the history of the house, which is how Raymond came to learn about the Lamont's, and the incident where Robert Lamont had attempted to shoot an entity that he saw in his kitchen. All of this sent Raymond's head spinning. Maybe he had been too quick to dismiss his daughter's claims about the paranormal

goings on. But this didn't stop him from pushing on with his plans. A few nights later, Raymond and Ray Jr. were sitting with Ginger, talking through. what they were going to do. Raymond had drawn up new blueprints for his planned hotel and was talking Ginger through them. When Ginger noticed that her brother's leg was shaking up and down and he was violently biting his nails. Ginger asked what was wrong and her brother said that he had just developed this habit recently. He couldn't stop biting his nails. Ginger could see he was clearly agitated by something, but she had a suggestion for him. She had recently been experimenting with learning hypnosis and she believed if he would let her that she could help him stop this nail-biting

habit. Ray Jr. agreed and Ginger held up a pen asking her brother to focus on it and she softly spoke to him. Unbeknownst to her, April had overheard the conversation and had crept downstairs, listening in to the whole thing. Once Ray Jr. was under, Ginger started asking him about the mansion. As soon as topic was brought up, his leg began shaking again. But then something weirder happened. Ray Jr. started speaking in a voice that didn't sound like his own. He kept repeating the same few sentences over and over, his leg violently bumping up and down as he did, almost growling as he spoke.

Ginger kept trying to bring him back around but she couldn't. The voice growing angrier and more aggressive as it went. Eventually, Ray Jr. snapped out of it and he came back around. He didn't believe Ginger when she told him what happened, but she was able to prove it to him. They had recorded the session. Ginger played the tape back to her brother so he could hear it all. In this rough old voice that didn't sound like his own, Ray Jr. had claimed he was very old. He claimed that he despised weakness.

He hated his children, of which she claimed to have seven, although Ray Jr. didn't have any children of his own. Then he kept repeating over and over that his children were weak and that he was very strong, repeating this weird, angry statement over and over, until Ginger was able to bring him back around. As the tape ended, Ray Jr. was left shaking and disturbed. He looked up at his sister and father and decided it was time to tell them what made him leave summer wind the other day. Ray Jr. had walked upstairs to the master bedroom to find someone had left the window wide open. He didn't remember opening it the day before but he was sure he must have. Either way, due to the thunderstorm outside, rain had been pouring in through the window for quite

some time, soaking the floor and leaking out into the hall. Ray shut the window and grabbed a mop, drying first the bedroom before moving out into the hall. He was a bit of the window. He He began mopping the floor along the hall, but it was like the water stretched deeper into the house than it should. How had it got all the way down the hall like this? Ray kept mopping and mopping. He said it felt like the hall was getting longer and longer as he walked along with his mop. But he did eventually reach the end. Ray sighed.

He was clearly just tired. After the growling sounds, he hadn't got much sleep the night before. Ray grabbed his mop and went to head back downstairs when he noticed it. Through the doorway into the master bedroom he could see, the window was open yet again. Rain pouring in. Ray rushed back, slamming the window shut and began mopping yet again. And then he heard it. A voice.

A voice he was sure had just called his name. Ray Jr. shouted out asking who was there. He tried to assure himself that maybe his father had showed up, but when he heard the voice again, he knew he didn't recognise it. He thought it was coming from the stairs, so Ray Jr. cautiously walked to the top of them to look down. There was no one. Ray Jr. jumped six feet in the air, though,

when he heard two sudden loud bangs. Instinctively, he rushed downstairs to the source of the sounds. It was only as he entered the kitchen that he smelt it. Gunpowder. Then he realised it had sounded like a gun had gone off. Suddenly concerned he could be in very real danger here from a possible trespasser. Ray quickly scouted the house and the area directly outside, but could find no trace of anyone.

He returned to the kitchen and that's when he noticed them. Two small holes in the basement door. They kind of looked like bullet holes. Then he heard them again. The voices. Ray turned around from the door and he saw something in the kitchen. Something that he struggled to put into words. A shape, a figure.

It began rushing towards him. Ray ran as fast as he could, jumped into the camper van and drove back home. He didn't believe in ghosts before. But he did now. Hearing his son's story, Raymond instantly made the connection to the Lamonts and the incident in their kitchen. But this is where the story takes a slightly strange turn. Raymond started to believe now that this was all real, but he didn't see it as something negative. He thought there was something in the house attempting to communicate with them.

Raymond asked Ginger to now try the hypnosis on him to see if he too was carrying around any subconscious information about the house. It took Raymond a little longer to fall under the hypnosis, but when he did, he began to describe a vision he was having. He saw himself inside the halls of Summerwind, walking through, headed to the kitchen and down into the basement. While there, he crouched down next to a wall and pulled out a loose brick from the base of the wall. Behind the brick was a gap, a gap that seemed to be left there on purpose. He then pulled a small box out. Inside the box was what appeared to be a land grant, dated 1767. The name of the owner read Jonathan Carver.

When Raymond came to, he claimed he had no memory of the vision he had just described to his children. Nor did he recognise the name Jonathan Carver. But the next day Raymond headed to the library and began his research. Sure enough, Jonathan Carver was a very real man, an explorer who had been in the area during the 1700. It was said he had helped to arrange a peace deal between two warring Native American tribes. As a thank you, Carver had been given the deed to a piece of land by one of the tribes. This was the very land that Summerwind Mansion now stood on.

However, it seemed that Carver's descendants were never able to find the document that proved the land was theirs. Ginger became convinced that the ghosts were attempting to communicate this to them, that it was their job to find Carver's deed. The three of them then returned to Summerwind the next day, and sure enough, they found the loose brick in the wall in the basement. It was clear that something had been kept in there, but no sign of the box from her father's vision could be found. They searched the house from top to bottom for hours,

but couldn't find anything. Defeated, the trio left Summerwind that day, never to return. leaving the mystery unsolved. In 1982 the property was sold yet again. Its new owners were warned of the responsibility of taking on summer wind, but much like everyone else, they simply laughed it all off. They had plans to turn it into a bed and breakfast, but it was never to be.

On Father's Day in 1988, a thunderstorm hit the area. The official verdict from the fire department was that lightning had hit the mansion, likely multiple times, starting a fire. It burnt Summerwind Mansion to the ground, leaving behind just its imposing large chimney stacks as a lasting monument of the beautiful house that had once stood there. Over the years, the legend of Summerwind has grown and grown,

and to this day, paranormal investigators still visit the site, hoping to experience something for themselves. It seems the area has a profound effect on those that visit, with many claiming to feel sick when they enter the former grounds of the mansion. Others claim to hear strange sounds, and some even see someone. But more often than not, it would appear whatever is still residing in the shadow of summer wind is not Jonathan Carver at all. Even before the mansion would burn down, people would claim to see her. A woman staring out of one of the windows. looking down, potentially the same woman that had paced up and down outside Ginger's kitchen.

To this day, this woman is one of the more widely reported sightings at Summerwind. But who is she? Well, to get into that, there appears to be a secondary piece of folklore surrounding the Lamont family and their history with this property. But I thought I would get my good friend Cody from Mystery Archives to tell you all about that. They call her lilac Lucy, and her story is a tragic one that paints a very different picture of Robert Lamont. Just outside of Atlanta, Georgia, stood the Whitehall plantation. The home had fallen on hard times after the Civil War.

The family who owned it, a once powerful one, were now forced to use their own daughters to bring in funds. luckily the family from the north had a proposal for them one of these daughters lucy was to become the mistress of a powerful new york banker by the name of lamont while he used her for sex he had no desire to keep her as his wife and instead came up with a new arrangement for her family in the end it was agreed lucy would marry lamont's son Robert, and a Lamont family would purchase the plantation as a part of this deal. Robert Lamont lived with Lucy for a while on the plantation in this strange arranged marriage. They then moved to New York together. Lucy thrived in New York, learning languages, the harp, and becoming ingrained in high society.

But her husband was still a stranger to her. a distant man who she rarely saw, a representation of a family that had taken her away from her home. Her only remaining connection to that home was a servant she had been allowed to bring with her, named Hannah. Robert then decided he had had enough of his busy city life. He wanted to move again, and that's when he discovered the landlakes and the plot of the plodels. of land he would eventually build his mansion on. By this point, Lucy was pregnant and gave birth to a son shortly after moving to Lilac Hills. But while there, Robert changed. Lucy preferred it when he had been a distant husband, because now he was around more often. She saw how controlling

Robert could be. Robert basically kept her as a prisoner, rarely letting her. her leave the mansion, keeping her locked away from the public eye. Even when people came to visit, robber would drive them away, cutting off all social interaction that Lucy could have. She then gave birth to a daughter who died shortly after being born. It is said that they buried that baby on the property, but that no grave was put up for her. The only contact she had with her, the outside world was letters she would send her family back in Georgia, begging them to come and see her, but they never did. She had no idea if they even received the letters. In these letters, she painted a slightly terrifying portrait of lilac hills, one that went beyond just the cruelness

of Robert. She spoke of screams in the middle of the night and hearing voices. that the maids would find themselves covered in strange bruises, that her son was acting strangely, as though he could see things that weren't really there. The wine cellar in the basement was the room that scared her and the servants the most. The entrance had been bricked over, but there were shackles on the walls.

It appeared that Lamont had built his own jail cell. Lucy wasn't sure who he intended to keep in there, but she didn't want to find out. Over time, Lucy befriended the overseer of the property, John Whittington. He agreed to help Lucy escape, and along with Lucy's servant, Hannah, and her son, they fled the property one day, but Lamont tracked them down quickly, and the group was found in Virginia. Lucy had been attempting to get back to her family in Georgia. The fates of Hannah and John are apparently another detail that is lost to history.

Lucy was dragged back to Lando Lakes and supposedly she was never heard from again. That was until a few years later, when one local claimed to have spotted her, pale, skinny, and old beyond her years. No one knows what happened to Lucy. But when Robert Lamont abandoned Lelak Hills on that night in the 1930s, it appears she did not leave with him. Her son James grew to become quite a troubled young man. Despite his wealthy family, in his adult life, he would be seen working at a nearby gas station.

When someone once asked about his mother, James's face went deathly pale. He wouldn't speak about her, but he warned them to never visit the mansion. This story originates from a woman named Emily Forsyth Warren, who grew up on West Bay Lake. Emily was always told to avoid the mansion, although she did claim to have ended up taking refuge within its walls one day when an unexpected storm rolled in while out playing on the lake with her friends. While inside, she is convinced they saw the ghost of Miss Lucy. Could this be the female spirit that many have claimed to see over the years? Although most of the people who have

had experiences with this spirit have described her as a friendly entity, Lucy's letters and the reported male voices that have been heard, however, suggests that something far more evil and older is lurking within the soil beneath Summerwind Mansion. So what really happened? Summer wind feels like a really confusing mix of local folklore, real-life history, and potentially a few people muddying the waters of reality and fiction. The original account I laid out of Lamont building the home for his wife and family appears to be the more historically accurate.

There doesn't appear to be much evidence to the existence of Lucy, beyond stories told by locals. However, that's not to say it isn't true. We know for a fact that Robert was married to Helen, but could he have been a bigamist? Or, even possibly, had Lucy as a mistress, that he kept locked away in his own private summer retreat, away from prying eyes and his family.

Either way, neither story appears to be the origin of the hauntings. If there is truly something hauntings, haunting summer wind. It appears to predate Eva version of the Lamont story. There is a genuinely strange history to the place. Why the LeMont family would up and leave this house that they loved so much and then seemingly act as though they never even lived there is a little eerie. A photograph of the basement door was famously taken in the 1980s before the property burned down, which did appear to show two small holes in it. But when the investigator who took the photo returned a few weeks later, someone had taken the entire door, so we have no way of

knowing if these holes were recent or evidence that backs up the Lamont story. Even if the door hadn't been apparently stolen, it would have likely perished in the fire a few years later anyway. Where the waters really get muddied for me though is the arrival of the Hinshaws in 1969. In recent years, the story of the Hinshaws grew more famous after their appearance on the television show, A Haunting, where they spoke about their experiences firsthand, and for as far as I can tell, the first time in years. The story had also previously appeared in a copy of Life magazine, but the more notable retelling comes from the 1979 book, The Carver Effect, by an author by the name of Wolfgang von Boper. In this, the story of the

Hinshaws has laid out, along with Raymond's experience with apparently channeling the spirit of Jonathan Carver, something that he apparently claimed continued on for years even after failing to find the box. He said he continued communicating with Carver, using a variety of different techniques to talk to the dead. If you hadn't guessed already, Wolfgang von Boeba was the pen name of Raymond Bober, who had written the book himself. At this point, it becomes hard not to notice certain similarities. A house with a checkered history, A seemingly innocent family moves in and is haunted by ghosts that ultimately turned the husband insane. Even the casual mentions of Native American tribes and artifacts, it all sounds a little similar to the Amityville haunting.

The book of which was released a few years before Raymond's and was obviously a huge hit. But had Raymond concocted the story himself completely to try and sell a book? Or had he taken something that really happened to his story. that really happened to his family and twisted a few details to make it a more enjoyable story. If the story were totally false, then I do wonder why they would all go on TV in 2005 to repeat the claims of a long out-of-print book. Raymond's writing career never appears to have taken off, so it kind of feels like there was nothing to gain from reliving the whole thing, especially for April, who was simply a kid back then, and could have just kept her head down

if her family had made up a story about a haunting. I struggle to buy into the whole vision of Jonathan Carver aspect of the story, and very little evidence appears to back up this narrative, and the idea of the family finding the body in the walls, but not going to the police, seems a little too out there, considering no one else ever saw this body. But what about the actual haunting that Ginger claimed to experience? Was there any truth to this?

Or was it simply the effect of she? sharing the house with a husband who was clearly having some very serious mental health issues. So what do you think? Let me know in the comments what you make of this one. A family taking the strange history of their new home to try and kickstart another Amateurville-style legend. Or was there something to it? Were the LeMont family really chased out by something in their basement? Was Arnold really driven insane by spirits? Did Jonathan Carver really communicate with Raymond? is there still something

residing in the wreckage of Summerwind Mansion that's all for this entry into the tape library it's been a long time since we got into a straight up haunted house story and I know these are a favourite for a lot of you so I hope you enjoyed this one of course I've already mentioned the episode of a haunting

on the Summerwind House you can find that on YouTube if you want to delve deeper plus Devon Bell's book Haunted Summerwind A ghostly history of a Wisconsin mansion was a huge help in putting this one together. It's a short read, but I highly recommend it if you want to learn a bit more. I did really want to read the Carver effect in full, but the cost of secondhand copies proves a bit of a stumbling block. Also a huge thank you to mystery archives for jumping on and sharing the story of Lilac Lucy.

I originally read about this in Devon Bell's book, and while there wasn't a lot of evidence to add to the story, it was just such a creepy little bit of folklore. but I couldn't not include it in here. If you aren't familiar with mystery archives, he covers a whole host of paranormal topics and is a really talented storyteller. If you like this show, then I'm sure you'll enjoy his too. He also has an episode on Summerwind,

if you aren't quite dumb with this old mansion yet. If you enjoyed this episode, please don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss out on future releases. And if you are listening to the podcast version, please consider leaving a review. It really helps me out massively. If you are inclined to support the show monetarily,

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Until next time, my friends, pleasant dreams.