(Day 8) Today, I thought it might be fun to talk about some of the cool, dark, literary locations I have visited over the years.
Let’s see… First, there was this documented haunted house–a story written about it in a book and everything—that I went to along with the rest of my college fantasy game club back in the day. We were literally there at midnight on Halloween and nothing… nada. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t expecting anything, I just always trot this story out to anyone superstitious whenever they start getting into the weeds.
The place was pretty neat, though: an old antebellum plantation home that had fallen into disrepair.
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Then there was the time that I visited the Baltimore gravesite and townhouse of my favorite American author: Edgar Poe. Did you ever hear the story about the “Poe Toaster”? It was an elegant tradition started back in the day, something knuckleheads just had to up and ruin… No, that mysterious fan wasn’t me. Or was it? 😉
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My favorite of the dark literary locations I have visited, has to be the Villa Diodati in Cologny (a suburb of Geneva that looks down upon the lake). This one shouldn’t need any further introduction.
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My favorite story, however, comes from 1239 1st Street (at Chestnut) “The Garden District” New Orleans. Anne Rice wrote about this house extensively in her novel “The Witching Hour”—the abode of the Mayfairs. An image of the place even appears inside the hardcover. I think I probably like this book more than her Vampire Chronicles, even. Anyway, I knew of the house at the time, but what I did not know was that she was actually living in it! We’re there on the sidewalk, just feet away from the front porch, and I see this man rocking in his chair there (her husband? I think he was still alive at the time). Suddenly, there appears before us a great dark German shepherd, right close between the shrub and the gate. It was a little unsettling in a super cool sort of way, but he didn’t bark at us or anything. So I say to the man on the porch, “Isn’t this that house that Anne Rice wrote about,” to which he casually responded, “Yes. This is her house.”
I was gob smacked. I think I just said something like, “Wow… it’s beautiful…” Needless to say, I didn’t bother him further. It was just a really interesting encounter. I think she lives out in California now.
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The last one I can think of off the top of my head, is a stay we had in the Overlook (er, Stanley) Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado. Two nights we spent there, but not in room 237. I think we were on the top floor there where one could hear the draft at times coming under the doors. I wonder if they like it that way to give guests the willies. No ghost there either. I did see a naked lady, but thank God it was my wife! They still send me promotional emails over 10 years after the fact. I guess I should go back next time I’m out west. They have a really sweet bar there on the ground floor—completely modernized, but still tastefully integrated with the architecture.
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There are a few more that might technically qualify as “dark literary locations”: I was at the Keats house at the Spanish Steps once, Hampton Court Palace, and The Tower of London, but these seem to me to be more tourist locations than anything else at this point.