Lemp Mansion
Located in St. Louis, Missouri

Built in 1876 by Jacob Feickert and purchased outright by William Lemp for use as a residency and an auxiliary brewery office for the Lemp Brewery company. Even though it was already an impressive house, Lemp began renovating and expanding it and turning it into a showplace of the period.

The mansion was also as impressive underground as it was on the streets above. A tunnel exiting the basement led to a cave. Through a quarried shaft, the Lemp's could travel beneath the city, all the way to the brewery. One large, natural underground chamber was converted into an auditorium and theater with lighting where it is believed the Lemp's hired actors from the theater and vaudeville circuit for private performances. Also, below the streets, there was a concrete lined pool that had once been used for underground lagering that was converted into a swimming pool using hot water piped from the brewery's boiler room. After Prohibition the caves were sealed shut.

During this time of happiness, the Lemp family troubles began. In 1901, William Sr's favorite son and heir to the Lemp fortune, Frederick, died at home at the age of 28 due to heart failure. William was never the same after the death of his son and withdrew from society. He chose to walk to the brewery every day by the cave system beneath his house. William suffered another blow on January 1,1904, when his closest friend, Frederick Pabst died. William's behavior became erratic and indecisive.

On the morning of February 13th, 1904, his suffering came to an end. After eating his breakfast, William returned to his bedroom and shot himself in the head with a Smith & Wesson 38 caliber hand gun. William Lemp Jr took over the William J. Lemp Brewing Company in November 1904. In 1905, William Jr's mother, Lillian, was diagnosed with cancer and died in the home in 1906.

Struggling through the years of WWI, and with the onset of Prohibition, William Jr closed the plant and locked the doors. He sold the famous Lemp "Falstaff" logo for $25,000 and in 1922, sold off the brewery for $588,000, a fraction of the estimated worth of $7 million in the years before prohibition. On March 20th, while on his way to take his morning shower, William Jr's brother-in-law heard a loud cracking noise come from the bedroom. When he went to investigate the sound, he found his wife Elsa Lemp Wright, like her father William Sr, had shot and killed herself in the family home.

Facing the depression of his sister's suicide and the selling of the family business, William Jr could struggle no more. On December 29, 1922, after speaking to his wife on the phone, William Jr shot himself through the heart with a 38 caliber revolver. William Jr was survived by two brothers, Edwin and Charles, but the "family curse" continued. On May 10th, 1949, Charles was found in his bed, dead from a self inflicted gun shot from a 38 caliber Army Colt revolver. After the death of Charles Lemp, the house was sold and converted into a boarding home.

Tenant complained of ghostly knocks, footsteps and unseen voices and it became hard to find tenants to occupy the rooms.
The house continued to decline until 1975 when it was purchased by Dick Pointer and renovations started to turn it into a restaurant and Inn. During this time, workers reported strange things happening in the house. The feeling of being watched or followed, tools disappearing, footsteps in the hallways, and strange sounds.