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For Those Of You Who Like Ghosts.....
David In Indy:
We had a haunted house in my neighborhood too Kerry! It was the old Skiles Test estate, nicknamed the House of Blue Lights. They tore it down in the mid 1970's but it stood abandoned for a number of years and we used to sneak in there all the time. There were many rumors and legends surrounding that creepy old mansion! :)
Kerry:
Ooooooh, it even looks spooky! :o
What's the drill there, David? Why was it thought to be haunted? Did something happen in the house? ???
David In Indy:
That picture was taken back in the 1950s I think, when people were still living there. It was MUCH spookier after it was abandoned. We snuck in there all the time! I've always loved things like that, even as a kid.
Anyway, you asked about the house. It was built by Skiles Test a big real estate tycoon here in Indianapolis back in the early 1900s. He owned much of the land that now makes up northeast Indianapolis, including the neighborhood I grew up in. In addition to being extremely wealthy, he was also a bit eccentric. And it was because so many people viewed him as a crazy old man that so many rumors were sparked. He did do some rather odd things though. One year back in the late 1940s he hung blue Christmas lights along the all the eaves of his house. He liked them so much he ended up leaving them up and turned them on every night for decades. It was the blue Christmas lights that gave the house its nickname. He also had a three story guest cottage with a diving board attached to the third level of the building. The diving board hung over an olympic size solar heated swimming pool. He was a huge animal lover and owned dozens of cats. I remember seeing the cat cemetery out in his back yard. There was also a series of tunnels running from the house to various locations on the property. Two I can think of is the tunnel entrance just off Sycamore Hill (the road that leads up to my childhood home) which was built into a hill side. This tunnel led to the cellar of the mansion. Another tunnel connected the mansion's cellar to the detatched garage and care taker's house about 200 yards away.
The legends of the house included his wife being buried in a glass coffin and buried under the swimming pool. The legend goes that when his wife died, he placed her in a glass coffin and kept her in his living room with blue lights surrounding it. Then after a period of time, he buried her in the back yard and installed the pool over her grave. This of course is false. I believe both Mr. and Mrs. Test are buried at Crown Hill Cemetery.
Also supposedly a curse was attached to the property. If you trespassed, Mr. Test's spirit would haunt you until the day you died. I have never seen his ghost though and I went up there plenty of times! At least I don't THINK I've seen him. Sometimes when I'm at Dad's house I can hear strange noises coming from the location where the mansion once stood, but I think those noises are probably coyotes and other animals. It does sound very creepy though.
Another legend was the appearance of blue lights in the windows of the mansion even after it was abandoned. Now I do remember seeing those blue lights. Or at least I THOUGHT I'd seen the blue lights several times. It looked very odd, almost like a blue candle flame glimmering in some of the windows. But it could have been my imagination.
Anyhow it was a very interesting place and I was sorry to see it torn down. :'(
Kerry:
--- Quote from: DavidInIndy on October 15, 2008, 12:34:48 am ---
Also supposedly a curse was attached to the property. If you trespassed, Mr. Test's spirit would haunt you until the day you died. I have never seen his ghost though and I went up there plenty of times! At least I don't THINK I've seen him. Sometimes when I'm at Dad's house I can hear strange noises coming from the location where the mansion once stood, but I think those noises are probably coyotes and other animals. It does sound very creepy though.
--- End quote ---
Don't you have a ghost in your basement, David? It's probably Mr Test!!! :o ;) :laugh:
David In Indy:
--- Quote from: Kerry on October 15, 2008, 12:42:27 am ---Don't you have a ghost in your basement, David? It's probably Mr Test!!! :o ;) :laugh:
--- End quote ---
I think that ghost in my basement is a woman ghost. She's the ghost of a crazy woman. That's a long story too, but my neighbors knew the people who lived there before I moved in and they had activity down there too. They also knew the original owners of the house. And they told me someone did die in the house years ago. Apparently the wife used to stand down in the basement and bang on the pipes for her husband to come down and carrry up the laundry. Sometimes I can hear the banging late at night, and it's not my imagination because most of my friends have heard it too. It's really spooky sounding when it happens. I don't like it. :P
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