The Supernaturals (3 page)

Jason added, “For more of a description of the house and grounds, Kelly and I have commissioned the former news anchor John Wesley to narrate and take us through the rest of presentation.” Kelly walked to the back of the room so she could view the men and women around the table. Or, more specifically, the man at its head.

Everyone seemed impressed that Jason and Kelly had coerced one of the most important men in the history of the network to narrate the story. His deep and booming grandfatherly voice would lend much power to the tale, and their ability to bring him out of his retirement suggested powerful backing for the project. This point wasn’t lost on the most important man in the room. His eyes finally moved to the screen as the voice of the retired anchorman began.

“To view the fifteen carved wooden gables lining the edge of the steep roof to the house itself, you believe that Summer Place could be a scene borrowed from a wondrous fairytale of gingerbread houses, bright forests, and glowing, sunny meadows. The grounds, immaculate in their pristine condition, are a welcoming suggestion of what must assuredly lie beyond the façade of Summer Place. The barns and stables were designed for aesthetics as well as functionality and give the property that down-home Kentucky feel. The Olympic sized swimming pool gleams in the summer sun, and once welcomed visitors to the estate with promises of cool and refreshing summer days, drinking casually by the poolside while the twenty-five foot long barbeque pit was ignited for the evening meal.”

All eyes were on the screen and the pictures of Summer Place in all its glory. The voice of the former anchorman was comforting, as it had comforted all of America when he’d told the world each night, “we are still here, so here’s the news.”

“The sewing machine magnate, F.E. Lindemann, built Summer Place in 1892 as a family getaway deep in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania—a relatively short commute from New York City even in those days of washboard roads and dirt drives. New York was home to Lindemann’s industrial empire. His was the first family not only of the modern sewing machine, but of New York’s garment industry, as well.”

The view on the screen switched to a large family portrait.

“Ten family members, including Lindemann’s eight children, dominated the grounds in the summer months, and the children and parents were not alone. The house came complete with two butlers, three ladies of the house—as they preferred to call them while visiting the countryside and not, heaven forbid, maids—two stablemen, six landscapers, and a full-time summer chef with three assistants. F.E. Lindemann stumbled upon the land Summer Place now rests upon while hunting in 1885. After years of hunting vacations in the area, Lindemann cut loose with $90,000 for the property’s 832 acres. The house was actually built over the old hunting camp, and is reputed to have set Lindemann back one million in 1892 dollars.”

There was a small whistle from the darkness and Kelly smiled for the first time since the meeting began.

“F.E. Lindemann loved the location so much,” the anchorman’s voice continued, “that he erected Summer Place for his wife and soon-to-be large family. Elena Lindemann was a beautiful woman, and part of the extended royal family of Czar Nicholas II of Russia. Although very little is known of Elena in the years leading up to her marriage, it was her elegant, sensible taste that flourished in the easygoing decor of the main house. Instead of being ostentatious in the European way, she was refined in the new and subtle ways of the working class of her adopted country. It is only a theory that what happened to her cousin Nicholas in 1918 in Russia assisted her in reaching this point of view. Most who knew Elena would say that she had so much class she did not feel the need to push it on anyone else, as had her cousin the Czar. Very little is known about her. However, it is known that she dearly loved each of her eight children. She insisted on giving birth at Summer Place, even in the dead of winter. She would dote on those children until they were all, one by one, consumed by tragedy or illness.”

The view on the screen switched to show close-ups of each of the eight children.

“Still, she worshipped them with every ounce of her soul until the day she died in 1951. Every one of her children were brought back to Summer Place for burial after their deaths. As she put it,
to be brought back to the place they were born and lived the happiest years of their lives.”

Again the picture changed, showing another side of the giant mansion and grounds.

“Summer Place and its surrounding grounds, all eight hundred acres, were benign for the first few years the family visited for their extended summer getaways. Not one of the hundreds of movie stars and financial giants who enjoyed the hospitality of Summer Place ever had a complaint. A week spent with the Lindemanns was the height of relaxation and luxury. It was as if the mansion spent those first few years gearing up for its first headline-grabbing act, which occurred thirty-three years after it was built.”

The slide changed to a painting of a beautiful woman who smiled at the artist as if she knew she would be viewed for hundreds of years.

“The tranquility and demeanor of Summer Place changed in the summer of 1925. Gwyneth Gerhardt, a German opera star and acquaintance of the Austrian-born Lindemann, visited Summer Place as a prized guest. Miss Gerhardt came up missing on the evening of her own official grand reception. Amongst the guests that week were silent film stars from Hollywood and the royalty of Broadway Theater. Although no guests were ever directly quoted, it was whispered inside closed circles that Miss Gerhardt had been troubled by noises, voices emanating from the walls in her suite, in the days leading up to her reception. She would claim sleepless nights, saying she could hear the fading heartbeat of the house from far below where the dark, rich dirt met Summer Place’s wooden foundation. These rumors gave voice to talk that the German opera star may have been a little eccentric—even by
European
standards.”

The next slide showed the grainy official photograph of guests mingling in the ballroom inside Summer Place.

“The night of her official introduction to American high society and theatre circles, Miss Gerhardt never came down from her room. First, Frederic Ernst Lindemann himself searched every one of the twenty-five bedrooms and suites of Summer Place.” The scene on the screen changed to the brightness of the barn and the immediate property surrounding the house. “The search expanded to other areas of the extensive property, such as the stables, the pool, and even the barn, but no trace of the diva was ever found.”

There were curious nods and a few comments not fully heard from the table.

“A local girl, Leanne Cummings, a shy seventeen-year-old from the nearby village of Bright Waters, along the Bright River, trained by the Lindemanns for serving at social functions, claimed she had left Miss Gerhardt in her suite after laying out a beautiful sequined gown upon her bed. That was the last anyone ever saw of the famous German opera star Gwyneth Gerhardt.”

Kelly allowed her eyes to fall on the entertainment president. He was watching the presentation, but every now and then would write something on the notepad before him.

“A three-day search of the property was joined by the sheriff and local constabulary, but turned up no trace of Gerhardt. Lindemann even hired the famous Pinkerton Detective Agency, but to no avail. The official report states that the German socialite left the estate unbeknownst to her host, and that her present whereabouts were unknown. The police report from 1925 cites possible death by misadventure.”

The slide changed from a photo of the police report of the time to a gay scene of Christmastime at Summer Place.

“There were other strange instances at the house, to be sure. The Christmas party of 1927 is one of these. The Lindemanns very rarely spent Christmas outside of New York City unless Mrs. Lindemann was there for the birth of one of her children.”

Another slide. This one was of a woman most in the room recognized, but most failed to come up with her name.

“The incident in the winter of 1927 involved Vidora Samuels, a silent film star of some renown. She retired from acting at the height of her popularity, after claiming she had been attacked at Summer Place during Lindemann’s Christmas gathering. Although there has been evidence put forth from Hollywood circles that Vidora was more frightened by the microphones used in motion picture “talkies” than by any occurrence at Summer Place, most respected her for her talent and did not challenge her claim of an attack. She had a prowess for making anyone who heard her relate the story, a believer.”

A paragraph from a magazine filled the screen.

“When questioned about the incident several years later by Variety Magazine, Vidora denied ever claiming to have been attacked. Follow-up with the immediate family after her death in 1998 revealed that Ms. Samuels actually lived in terror from that night in 1927, and went to her grave never revealing the name of the person who assaulted her. Her personal maid and assistant of sixty years, and later her only companion, admitted to one person that once during a lucid moment in her last year of life, Ms. Samuels finally admitted that indeed, she had been assaulted that Christmas Eve seventy-one years before. She confessed that she had been brutally beaten and raped, but claimed that there had not been another living soul in her room at the time—she had been quite alone, with the lights turned on. A trained psychologist once offered that she may have actually blocked out the horrific event, which may have prevented her from seeing the attacker in her memory, but that hypothesis still remains just a theory.”

The slide changed to a gorgeous view of the mansion in summer.

“The most famous incident occurred in the very next turn of the seasons. In the summer of 1928, gossip columnist Henrietta Batiste, eminent in her literary slashing of the world’s most popular authors, was invited to visit for a short weekend getaway. Miss Batiste, an accomplished rider and renowned horse lover, was out riding alone one sunny Saturday morning before breakfast. As she trotted out the $120,000 thoroughbred from the richly appointed stable, her demeanor was one of a woman who had died and gone to heaven—according to the account that stablehand James McCeevy gave to the local constabulary that evening. Usually harsh and ill-tempered toward any of the hired help, the columnist seemed almost human on that fateful morning long ago.”

The slide switched to a scene from the Bright Waters Sunday Chronicle, the local newspaper. It showed a large group of searchers on the grounds surrounding Summer Place.

“The next anyone saw of the columnist was at five-thirty that evening. Lindemann had just returned with an unsuccessful search party to find the woman sprawled on the Persian rug in the entryway. She was bleeding from her mouth, and one arm was almost completely ripped free of her body. The same police report states that the thirty-six year old was in a state of shock from loss of blood—but I must note here that there was more than one quote from the house staff after their dismissal a few years later, stating that it wasn’t only loss of blood that precipitated the shock, but sheer fright.”

There was more than one gasp from the men and women around the table.

 
“A local physician removed the torn remnants of her left arm and stayed through the night to keep an eye on his famous patient. When she awakened, still in a state of shock, she was able to relate her experience to the good doctor. In the woods at the back of the estate, her horse had stumbled upon what looked like an unearthed human skull. There had been other remains—an old tattered gray dress, a woman’s shoe—but before she could discern more, she had been pulled from her horse by the sharp tug that had injured her arm. She was thrown to the ground, where someone—or something— pulled her hair, ripping free her riding hat, then showered open-handed slaps to her face. She had felt horrid fingernails rip down her cheeks and exposed neck. Miss Batiste claimed that if it weren’t for the horse, she would have been beaten to death. But the horse went wild, attacking her attacker with flying, flailing hooves. When the doctor and Lindemann attempted to question the woman further, her screaming fit started. She said it was a man, and then screamed it was a woman. The story switched back and forth until the only course of action was to discount her memory of the event altogether.”

Kelly looked around the meeting. The slide show and its powerful narration, the results of months of research and planning, were doing their job.

“As for her claim that her horse had unearthed the skeletal remains of a woman long dead, searchers returned to the scene and found no trace. Our producers attempted to gather more information, but sources in the small town refused to talk to us. It may seem ridiculous to us now, but thoroughly understandable when you see the faces of the locals. They are still haunted by the mention of Summer Place.”

Again, the gorgeous view of the giant house dominated the screen.
 

“The property has many familiar sides to it, as described by the author Shirley Jackson in her famous story. Ms. Jackson claimed never to have laid eyes upon the house, and extensive research by our producers has shown no evidence that she was ever on the property.”

The slide changed to the winding roads and forested slopes of the Pocono Mountains.

“Several weary travelers have reported eerie happenings on the roads surrounding the estate. Blood-curdling screams in the night, deer and other animals lying dead along a roadway that no one travels. There are even rumors of missing cross-country skiers who may have happened upon Summer Place in the season that sees the grounds shrouded in a white veil of snow. Ski tracks lead up to the property, but no tracks ever leave.”