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The
Lemp Mansion - St. Louis, Missouri
The thirty-four room, four story mansion sits as one of the finest houses in St. Louis, Missouri. The mansion is known as the Lemp Mansion. It was a wedding present to William Lemp given him by his in-laws & was built in the 1860's. The house, when
Lemp died became an apartment house, then a boarding house and then finally was bought and restored by the Pointers.
The Pointers run a restaurant in the house.
William Lemp learned the brewery business from his father, John Adam Lemp, as boy growing up in Germany. William moved to St. Louis and opened a small brewery of his own. Lager Beer was his specialty and it soon caught on in the St. Louis area. William
turned the brewery into the one of the largest ones in the world. William lead the cream of St. Louis society having them to the mansion for parties and the like. He and his wife had seven children. Frederick was the oldest son and had been trained to take over the business when William retired. But Frederick, on a trip to Pasadena California suffered a heart attack and died at the age of twenty eight. William became so depressed by the loss that he walked into the marble office in the Lemp Mansion, which overlooked the brewery, took a small-caliber pistol to his heart and pulled the trigger. He died instantly.
William Jr., though not trained as his brother Frederick, took the position
of president of the Lemp Brewery. He was a kind, generous man. He also had the
taste for the finer things in life, such as collecting art, fine jewelry, and other
such costly items. But he wasn't the businessman his father had been. He
managed to run the business adequately until Prohibition forced him to close
his doors. William Jr. became so
depressed at the closing of the brewery that he sold the business and the buildings for only a fraction of their value.
However, he maintained the
residences which overlooked the brewery, the Lemp mansion itself. William Jr., about six months after selling the brewery
took his fate in
his own hands. He followed the same path as his father had. He took a small caliber revolver, went into the marble office, placed the gun to his heart and pulled the trigger.
The next surviving Lemp, Charles, a brother to William Jr., continued to live in the house until 1949. Then early one morning, Charles took a small revolver and went to the basement of the mansion and ended his life. To this day, those enter the marble office, say the air is still and
lifeless and there is a morbid feeling that overtakes the room itself.
Edwin, the last brother of the Lemp's seven children sold the property.
Some say the Lemp's had more than seven children. Neighbors reported seeing a child looking out the attic window. Many believed the Lemp's had a retarded child. But nothing
indicates this to be true.
When Dick Pointer moved in, nothing unusual happened at first. But one
night, about a year after moving in, he lay in bed reading when he heard a
door slam loudly. His dog, Shadow, a Doberman, reacted not in its normal
manner of barking and showing his teeth but instead trembled and turned
down his ears. Dick rose and checked every door and window in the house
to ensure he had locked them all earlier that evening. Everything was just
as he had left it, locked up tightly. No intruder was found. A month later the same thing
happened again, then another month and again, and each
time nothing was found.
A workman heard the sound of horse hooves on cobblestones outside the
window. Another incident not explained. Dick, who was busy painting a bathroom one day, felt the presence of someone standing behind him. He
turned to see who it was and no one was there. He remembers feeling this burning sensation. When he turned back to paint, the sensation
overtook him again.
When the restaurant finally opened, strange things began happening there also. Late one night, when Dick was bartending, the water in a
pitcher started to swirl around on its own. Then the piano began playing but
there
was no one there to play it. The house is at: 3322 De Menil Pl. St. Louis!
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