Lemp Mansion

The Lemp Mansion is a haunted house in St. Louis, Missouri that has a tragic history. Four members of the Lemp family killed themselves in the mansion under mysterious circumstances and their ghosts still haunt the old building.

Lemp Mansion is regarded as one of the most haunted houses in the United States and yet it still hasn’t been investigated by Ghost Hunters. It now operates as a restaurant & inn.

The Lemp Family was rumored to be cursed and they certainly had their share of misfortune. Oddly, four members of the Lemp family took their own lives by shooting themselves.

William Lemp was devastated by his father’s death and withdrew from public life. His health declined and he committed suicide in his bedroom by shooting himself in the head. William’s daughter Elsa committed suicide in 1920 when she grew depressed about her rocky marriage.

William J. Lemp, Jr. and his wife his wife Lillian (who known as the “Lavender Lady”) spent vast amounts of money. William grew tired of his wife and began having affairs with other young women. One of these women gave birth to a child who was afflicted with Down’s Syndrome. The Lemp family were embarrassed by him and kept the little boy hidden in the basement so no one would find out about him. The poor boy spent 30 years in Lemp Mansion, eventually dying in captivity.

The brewery began to decline due to competition and eventually, the Lemp family were forced to close the doors and sell their business at a loss. The failure weighed heavy on William J. Lemp Jr. and he committed suicide in exactly the same way as his father had, by shooting himself in the head.

William Jr.’s brother, Charles, continued to live in the house but he developed a morbid fear of germs. Eventually, he too succumbed to a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Due to all of the horrible deaths, the Lemp Mansion developed a reputation as one of the ten most haunted places in America. Visitors to the mansion have reported feeling as if they are being watched, or sensing an atmosphere of sadness, and some claim to have seen apparitions of members of the Lemp family.

In the 1970s, workers reported strange things happening in Lemp Mansion, leading many to believe the place was haunted. Reports often varied between feelings of being watched, vanishing tools and strange sounds. Many of the workers actually left the job site and never came back. During the mansion’s restoration, a painter working on a mural felt that he was being watched and immediately fled the mansion, without washing his brushes or taking out his equipment, and never returned.

Since the Lemp Mansion Restaurant & Inn opened, staff members claim to have experienced supernatural events. Glasses have been seen lifting off the bar and flying through the air. Unexplained sounds are often heard and some people have even glimpsed actual ghostly apparitions that appear and vanish at will.

In addition, many customers and visitors to the house report weird incidents. Doors lock and unlock on their own, the piano plays by itself, voices and sounds come from nowhere and the spirit of the “Lavender Lady” has been spotted in the old mansion.

In the 1980s, it was ranked in the top nine haunted places by Life Magazine. More recently, Lemp Mansion and the former Lemp Brewery have been featured on Haunted History and the reality TV show MTV Fear.