The Biltmore Estate

Hi, I'm Holly. And I'm Hailey. Welcome to Mountain Mysteries, Tales from Appalachia. Welcome back.

Hi. Hello. Hi. Hailey, did you know I'm a semi-beacon now?

Are you? I didn't know this actually. We had a very full length of session about earlier, but please. Yes, yes, no.

I'm cracking up in my Celsius, please hold. I'm so sorry. Where's my Celsius? Long drive.

I can't function without her Celsius. I'm actually drinking a lovely chai tea. It's just mango and passion fruit. Does it really keep you energized and stuff?

It's a lot of vitamin B in it. I've heard they're really bad for you, like, for your heart, but you know? Oh, gosh. Two carbs in it.

Please don't have a heart attack on your nose. How many of those do you drink a day? Oh, maybe one. Okay.

Every day? No. Okay. No.

They're also expensive. I love it, Ollie. Really? Mm-hmm.

I love the Ollie. Anyway, tell me about your semi-beaconess. No, I have gone through a lot of extreme illness. Yeah, I've been sick.

I've been one sick girl. And so part of the testing that they've done, I mean it's still inconclusive, so many things I could have going on. But I have a severe allergy to any kind of wheat, so I have to be gluten free. And also severe allergy to dairy.

So, essentially, I am a semi-vegan. And when I say semi, I mean most of my diet is plant based, except I do eat meat. Now that's weird for me, because I have always been a pescatarian, like, vegetarian-ish, you know? Yeah.

And I was for years, straight vegetarian. So eating meat is very hard for me, but if I don't, I'll probably keel over it because, you know, some people are like, you can just live on vegetables. I can't. I'm a sturdy girl.

And I feel like it would be a little bit more. So, yeah, I have changed my complete diet. Yeah. Plus 13 pounds in, like, two weeks, but I don't suggest that.

No. I've also been horrifically ill. Yeah. So, yeah.

Well, you're allergic to something else too. Tomato. Tomato. Yeah.

She also, in the allergy testing my doctor, found that I have a slight allergy to coffee, chocolate, you know, like, all the fun things. Mm-hmm. I knew that because by my, like, third cup of coffee at three o'clock in the afternoon, my stomach would say, what are you doing? And I get so sick.

So I have switched to tea. Mm-hmm. So I haven't had a cup of coffee in, like, three weeks. Why?

Yeah. I have one this morning. And I am a coffee drinker like hardcore. Yeah, you are.

So I don't really know what to do with myself. I'm like, who am I? But I'm ready to, like, get jacked and, like, be skinny as can be. Yeah.

I'm very excited about that. It's gonna be, you just had to get through horrific. It's been, it's been hard. Yeah.

And also, you know, I mean, extreme diagnoses are not off the table. So, you know, we're just, we're positive Ivan. We're seeing doctors. Yeah.

We're hoping that good things happen. But, you know, next time you hear from me, five pounds later. Yeah. Yeah.

The next time we'll have a health update. Yeah. Oh. And I can't wait to tell my grandma because, you know, she always used to think that she, she wouldn't have speak and she, she would say, Wiccan for vegan.

I think I told you all that many, many episodes ago. Oh, no. And so I can hear her now. She goes, oh my gosh.

Now you're a Wiccan? No, that's a religion. I am a vegan, semi vegan. Kind of, kind of sort of.

But not at all. Yeah. I'm vegan because I can't eat dairy. Yeah.

And mostly plant-based stuff. But then I also eat meat. So it's so weird. Anyway.

Yeah. I think I just meant the huge adjustment because I'm making two separate meals all the time. Yeah. Because my son is not.

Right. So he eats, you know, what he always eats and then there's me. Yeah. And when I first found this out, I hadn't even gotten to the grocery store and I was like, I don't think there's anything in my house like any, because yeah, it may be G free, but it may not be dairy free.

Yeah. It may be dairy free, but it may be have gluten. Like I mean, you're constantly, and the biggest actual thing is dairy. Yeah.

Like so many things have eggs in there. Yeah. Well, eggs aren't dairy. It's true.

Eggs are eggs. It's true. Eggs are eggs. You're right.

It's a little hard of it. Yeah. And then milk and then butter and cheese. And here's the thing that I used to always say separated me from being vegan is I could never give up my cheese.

Yeah. Well, I guess I'm giving up my cheese. Yeah. They make vegan cheese.

They do. And I. Well, some are good. Apparently the ones from Trader Joe's are really good.

I was fortunate to find some things at the Walmart. Yeah. I don't really have a Trader Joe's budget. No.

I'm more of a Walmart. Well, they are Aldi's cousin, but more expensive. They're the expensive. Yeah.

Yeah. And I just don't want to drive. It's always crowded. It's a nice.

Well, all right. Sorry on that. No, I mean best of luck with that. Let me know how that goes.

This wishes on your illness. Best of luck. Good vibes to you that it's nothing serious. Thank you.

I mean, in all actuality, like that could be something. Yes. But we're going to good vibe with that. There are a lot of concerns, but we are hopeful and everybody has been so kind at work and very sweet and my boss sent me a card.

So shout out Melissa if you're listening. And she knows I like cats and she likes cats. I hope you feel better and it was so lovely. So, yeah.

Everybody's been great. Well, on that happy note, what are we talking about today? Well, we're going to talk about America's largest home. Would that be the build more?

It would be the build more. I do love the build more. Yeah. So we're going to go to Asheville, North Carolina.

I have been there and we are going to go to the build more state. Let's do it. Oh, it's expensive. Oh, but you're taking me for free today.

Taking you for free today. That's fair. So I have kind of a personal connection with the build more estate. Oh, okay.

So when I was a kid and on a clogging team, we were one of the regular, like regular scheduled performers at the build more state. So when we first started performing there, we danced one time in the house and our taps, because if you don't know anything about clogging, we have two metal taps that like clinked together. It was awful because it echoed so bad. It's all hard.

It's all like marble and like open and beautiful and they had us like in this little section and it was so bad that they moved us outside, like in front of the house. So entertainment only be out there. So for years, we were like outside to the left of the house and there was like a little, like a rock mining thing that they had set up. It was really weird and a little tent and like a kids play area thing and we danced there with a band and it was a lot.

And we did that for years and then they moved us again to a stable, like a horse barn. There were no animals in there, but it's like an old horse barn and we danced there. And that's where we were until we, I mean for like probably, I don't know, five, six, seven years we danced there. I have a little more state so we got to go in and do like, could see the estate for free and you know, performers.

It's really cool. And my grandfather was a dairy farmer and built more used to have a dairy. So he would go over and help, I believe, and I may be getting this wrong, but we'd go over and help like cut corn and do stuff on the estate for a bit more. Nice.

So that was pretty cool. And we have some of the original back when they used to bottle their milk and glass bottles. We have milkmen. Yeah.

We have several built more dairy ones and we also have some of our family dairies. There used to be a little more, a little more dairy bar, which had the best ice cream probably before your time. It's where the TJ Fridays is now and all the hotels there and more. But yes, they used to have it and we used to go there and it was so cool because it was like handmade ice cream.

It was so delicious and so good that as a kid I was like, can we go to a little more dairy bar? It was amazing and I'm very sad they got rid of it. Yeah, they used to bottle everything in the glass. So we still have, we have several of them though.

The lures are pretty, they're not too difficult to find. We had a ton in our, we cleared out one of our barns and we had always last. I'm sure they are. But we had all these glass milk bottles and we were cleaning them up and looking for ones that had our dairies name on it and didn't find any.

We found several more ones that I got mixed in with ours. That's really cool. But so that is my connection. We built more estate.

Growing up in Western North Carolina, it's like everybody's been there and that's the thing you've done. You don't really do it. Honestly, I've probably gone twice. Once in fourth grade and once in 2011 I took my mom.

My colleague had an extra pass and said, hey, do you want this? I said, sure. Yeah. I never been in the house that one time to dance and then I went at Christmas one year with my family.

Christmas is beautiful. They say one of the most beautiful times. I haven't been at Christmas. It's gorgeous.

It's very expensive. I can't even imagine. Yes. So let's get into some of the history now that we've gotten our personal history out the way out the way out.

Sorry. But it's related. Time to. Everyone.

So in the 1880s, the way back in the day, this is kind of the height of the Gilded Age. George Washington Vanderbilt the second began to make regular visits with his mother, Maria Wiesa, Kism, Vanderbilt to the Asheville, North Carolina area. He fell in love with the scenery and the climate and decided that he was going to build a summer house in the area, which he called his, quote, little mountain escape. Little.

Yeah, right. His older brothers and sisters had built the Giorias summer homes in places like Newport, Rhode Island, the Gold Coast, Stavong Island, and Hyde Park, New York. Darling, I know I'm always looking like, where should I build my summer home? Yeah.

And smoking it to 10 cigarettes. No. Don't smoke kids. So Vanderbilt named his estate, Biltmore, which combined De Bilt, which is his ancestors, place of origin in the Netherlands, and Moore, which is Anglo-Saxon for Moore M-O-O-R, which is an open and rolling land.

So Biltmore. So it's still very classy. Yeah. Vanderbilt brought nearly 700 different parcels of land, including over 50 farms and at least five cemeteries.

Apportion of the estate was once the community of Shiloh. We talked about it. Which is a very contested issue. Like this very wealthy man buys up all this land and what are people left with in the area.

It's a lot. There's a lot of the Shiloh. Especially the Shiloh area. Yeah.

So a spokesperson for the estate said in 2017 that the archives show much of the land quote was in very poor condition and many of the farmers and other landowners were glad to sell. I mean, knowing this region and this area I can't imagine in that time, I mean, this is pretty wild country. Yeah. Like, it's a difficult area to farm.

It's a difficult area to build. If you don't have lots of land moving equipment. And in the 1880s, not seeing a lot of that. Yeah.

So I didn't have the money to be able to afford it. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So construction of the house began in 1889.

And in order to kind of begin this large project, a woodworking factory in Brick Kiln, which produced 32,000 bricks a day, were actually built on site. So they just built everything there. A three mile railroads fire was constructed to bring materials to the building site. Construction on the main house required the labor of about 1,000 workers and 60 stone masons.

Where a lot of these individuals local. I don't really know. Okay. I would hope that he hired local folks.

Yeah. Probably, probably hired poor folks. I don't know. Don't know exactly how well this was done.

But Vanderbilt made several trips overseas during construction to purchase the decor. He returned to North Carolina with thousands of furnishings for his newly built home, which included tapestries, hundreds of carpets, prints, linens, and decorative objects dating from the 15th century to the late 19th century. Imagine trying to ship that overseas. That's a lot.

Yeah. Among the few American made items worthy more practical, oak drop, front desk, rocking chairs, a walnut grand piano, bronze candlesticks, and a wicker waste basket. Now, I feel like a wicker waste basket would definitely be my summer home. Yeah.

I think I have one here actually. The Power of American spook is wicker. That's wicker. That's kind of golden girls, Floridian, and I hear wicker.

Yeah. But then I'm thinking beach house. I'm thinking spring. It's not giving me, I'm thinking something to put my excess blanket then.

I'm not thinking like grand home. Right. But, you know, that's what it was. But that will also be in my summer home.

Yeah. So, Georgia Vanderbilt opened the estate on Christmas Eve of 1895 to family and friends from across the country. They were encouraged to come and enjoy some of the years and country pursuits. The nation reportedly cost about $5 million.

Today's equivalent of $180 million. I mean, it's like my summer home. Yeah. Yeah.

Not a problem. Cost about that much to construct. Guests to the estate over the years included several famous people. So, we've got novelist Edith Wharton and Henry James, ambassadors Joseph Hodges Chote, Chote, Donna, and Lars Anderson, and US presidents.

It does not tell me what the presidents were, but there were some presidents. US presidents. George married Edith, Stuvesant Dresser in 1898 in Paris. So, of course, how romantic.

So, they're only child Cornelia Stuvesant Vanderbilt, sure. It was born at Billmore in Louis the XV, what's XV? Louis the 8. King Louis the...

X is 10, B is 5, 15. 15, sure. 15, sure. So, wait a minute.

There was a Louis the 15th room. So, wait. She was like, oh, wait, let me get into Louis the 15th room. Oh, this is what I shall give back.

Yes, yeah. I didn't get the Louis 15th room. Did either. I got a room at Mission Hospital.

I mean, huh. That's not fair. No. Now, the risotto that gave me the hospital was delicious.

Anyway, they had good food at our hospital. Yeah, yeah. It was worth it. It wasn't the Louis the 15th room.

No, the bar. The bar came. I mean, birth is birth. Birth is birth.

I don't know. Yes. So, she was born in that room in 1900 and grew up at the estate. Can you imagine growing up at the bit more?

I'd never be able to find my child. I mean, with how vast it is, it's like, oh, where's the house? Where is my son? Oh, he's on the West Wing and I'm in the East Wing.

I have no idea what it was. Oh, take me an hour to walk across. I never knew he was. We're three months.

Oh, there you are. You're hiding in the Billy Hood room. You little scamp. Ugh.

Let the nannies take care of it. Yeah. All right. So moving on to a little bit later in time.

Okay. So we're stressed by congressional passage of income tax and the expensive maintenance of the estate. Vanderbilt initiated the sale of 87,000 acres to the federal government. After Vanderbilt's unexpected death in 1914, a complication from an emergency appendectomy did not.

That's how he died. Very interesting. His widow completed the sale. She carried out her late husband's wish that the land remained pristine and that the property became kind of this center fold of the Piscan National Forest.

So it remains. It is still up. Yep. Overwhelmed with running such a large estate, Edith began consolidating her interest, selling Biltmore Estate Industries in 1917 and Biltmore Village in 1921.

She kind of intermittently occupied the house living in an apartment created in the former and bachelor's wing until the marriage of her daughter Cornelia to John Francis Amherst Cecil in April of 1924. The Cecil's had two sons who were born and built more in the same room that mother was. This is where mommy came out and this is where you go to. And I can see all the names are like three different names like John Upton Smythe, John Stu Vessent Cecil, you know, like all of these names.

You have to be. Yeah. Meanwhile, my mom's like, here's Holly. She's adorable.

Thanks to you. My son does have multiple names though. So I feel like I went with that painting. Yeah, you did.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So in an attempt to kind of bolster the estate's finances during the Great Depression, Cornelia and her husband opened Biltmore to the public in March of 1930 at the request of the City of Asheville, which hoped to revitalize the area with tourism.

Oh, they did a great job on that. Oh, yeah. Yep. So the 1930s, it's opened up.

We're trying to get people in, spend their money in Asheville, visit the... Come look at how rich we are. Come look at this giant house. Which sounds kind of funny, right?

Come look how rich we are. Give us your money, people standing in line for bread. Yeah. Just something.

Yeah. Biltmore did close during World War II. And in 1942, 62 paintings and 17 sculptures removed to the estate by train from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. to protect them in the event of an attack on the United States.

So Biltmore kind of became this safe place for documents and paintings and sculptures and things that needed to be stored there. Yeah. Make sure you wonder what else is stored there. I know.

Just kidding. The music room on the first floor was never finished, so it was used for storage until 1944. When the possibility of an attack became more remote, among the works that were stored there, where the Gilbert Stewart portrait of George Washington works by Rembrandt, Raphael, and Anthony Van Dyke. Wow.

David Finley, who was the gallery director, was a friend of Edith Vanderbilt and at State of the estate. So that's how he was like, this will be a good place. Yeah, at the art there. Yeah.

Okay. Can't you see though some of these people come in. Well, it's closed then at that point. Yes.

I think about it like, you know, some of these folks come in and they pay their $10 or whatever, and they're like, Laura, is that picture look funny to you? She's like, a little bit. He's like, hmm, it's fancy. Looks like one of them fancy artists probably.

Like, I mean, you just have these people who have been like out on the farm and they come in and they're like, well, that's so crazy about this. It's like, even to this day, you drive an hour or not even an hour, 30 minutes, really in any direction and you're in farmland. Yeah. Like, you're going to hit, like you drive up to it.

I mean, it's just, it's beautiful. Right. But then you go 30 minutes on the road and you've hit like a dairy farm or a goat farm or it is fascinating. Like, there's so much agricultural land around, like the street that I live on is zoned for agriculture.

Not me. Like, we can have chickens on our front yard. I have not seen Randy with a chicken yet. Not with a chicken yet?

No, we're not allowed to have any farm animals. Yeah. Yeah, we're zoned. We have a farm on our road.

Like, yeah, we're zoned for agriculture. Wow. Well, maybe I will charge you to come take it off my home. It doesn't have farm animals.

It does not have farm animals. It does not have farm animals. Is that my kid? Yeah.

It's a little sometimes. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. So after the Cecil's divorced in 1934, Cornelia left the estate never to return.

Just a bit of memory to get. She just headed out. But John Cecil maintained his residence in the bachelor's wing until his death in 1954. Their eldest son, George Henry Vanderbilt Cecil, occupied rooms in the wing until 1956.

At that point, built more house ceased to be a family residence and was operated as a historic house museum. So the younger son, William A.B. Cecil Sr. Mm-hmm returned to the estate in the late 1950s and partnered with his brother to manage some financial trouble.

They worked to create the profitable and self-sustaining enterprise that their grandfather had envisioned. William Cecil inherited the estate upon the death of their mother Cornelia in 1976. His brother George inherited the more profitable dairy farm, which was spun off as built more farms. Nice.

So that dairy was operational for a long time. Yeah. I don't know if they're still operational. I don't think so.

No. In 1995, while celebrating the 100th anniversary of the estate, William Cecil turned over control of the company to his son, William A.B. Cecil Jr. The built more company has probably held.

There are... Wasn't he that you and your daughter? Mm-hmm. Nope.

There's Sr. The younger son was A.B. Cecil. Jr.

So then his son... The junior. Oh. Yeah.

Okay. We have Sr. Junior. The first and the second.

Okay. I got one with the English. It's fine. It's fine.

It's fine. We're good. We're good. Moving on.

Okay. So, built more is like its own company now. Yeah. It's huge.

Built more company is privately held, obviously. Of the 8,000 acres that make up the Biltmore state, only 1.36 acres are within the city limits of Asheville. The Biltmore house is not part of any municipality, which is kind of interesting. And I wonder how it's taxed.

We're going to talk a little about taxes. Okay. A little bit about taxes here in a second, so I thought it was interesting. The estate was put on the National Historic Landmark Registry in 1963.

It remains a major tourist attraction in Western North Carolina. Has around 1.4 million visitors every year. I believe it. So it's crazy.

Oh yeah. Yeah. Since the death of William A.B. Cecil in October, this was Junior, he died in October of 2017, and his wife, Mimi Cecil in November.

Their daughter, Denny Pickering, has served as board chair and their son, Bill Cecil as CEO. The house is assessed at, drum roll, $157.2 million. I mean, just like my son in place. I know.

The taxes are outrageous. Wilds. Well, well, well. But I think that, I mean, essentially the house is paid for, so really all you're paying for is the taxes on it and the upkeep, which you would make in what you're getting from.

Yeah. So due to kind of agricultural deferment, county property taxes are paid on only $79.1 million worth of the home. Really? Why?

Because you don't tax agriculture. Okay. So just the actual home could be the land of the home and any type of like, I mean, you do tax agricultural land, but there's a, it's all tax very weird. And probably tax different because some is in city limits and some would be in county limits, which are, if you're in the city, you're essentially taxed twice.

Your tax for a county tax plus the city tax and it's extremely high. I live in the city limits of the town I live in, so I get taxes, I get town taxes, city taxes, and I have to pay the county taxes. But it sucks. God, it's the worst.

Yeah. Don't recommend it. But, you know, this would just, okay. So now that we kind of know the history of Bill Moore and it's a fascinating history.

It is. Let's talk about some ghosts. Yeah. Sounds like the trumill.

Many visitors and even staff have told stories of hearing and voice whispering the name, charge repeatedly in the hallways. It is believed that the spirit of Edith Vanderbilt herself is wandering the halls and possibly searching for her husband, who is also believed to be another spirit that is reported to also live in the mansion as well. That's, that's, that makes the question. What doesn't she ever find in the middle of the beer?

I know. Like can't the two spirits just meet up? I know. Even in death, I don't want to be together.

They're just wandering around the hall? Well, it is big. It's large. Yeah.

Um, it's large. At night, some of the people working on the grounds have heard sounds of laughter, glasses clinking, and party like a chatter. That just sounds fun. The only problem with that is there's no party going on.

It just, it's a ghost party. That's kind of cool. Yeah. Yeah.

Um, most visitors reported seeing spirits going up or down stairs. Sounds of footsteps have also been heard on once-pull occasions. There may have been some reports of some strange smells, cold spots, and eerie feelings when visitors would go up or down stairs. Um, there are a number of headless mannequins that are stored in one of the 200 rooms of a house.

I'm sorry. Why? I'll tell you why. So these mannequins were dressed in period clothing dating back to the early 20th century, just as like different.

Just to see like, oh, these are more back then. Yeah. Okay. That makes sense.

As for George Washington Vanderbilt himself, his spirit has been reported to be seen all over the place. But if you're hunting for George specifically, he's probably in his beloved study surrounded by his library of books. Okay. I feel like that's somewhere we would find you.

Yep. I'm in here in the library. I'm in the library. I'm in the library.

I'm in the library. Yep. I'm in the library. Um, yeah.

During his lifetime Vanderbilt was particularly proud of his library and would spend a considerable amount of time in the airport. And they were pouring over some rare book or another. It was Vanderbilt's particular habit to retreat into the library when he saw a storm approaching. His ghost may be continuing this habit as workers and visitors to the estate are said to have seen a shadowy figure in the library, usually when the skies are dark and there is an oncoming storm.

Ooh. How nice that I was sitting in the library. It's raining. You're warm and cozy.

Yeah. You know, with your invisible cup of tea. Yeah. Great times.

Great times. So there's not a lot of records about whether the Vanderbilt's owned pets or not. I feel like you would lose a cat in a house like that. Probably.

Pretty fluffy. But some people have reported seeing a headless orange cat roaming in the garden area. I do not care for that. No, I don't either.

No, I don't like that headless. No, no, no. That's the part that got me. That's what troubles them.

Yeah. Um, yeah, it's, it's spooky. The most common haunted area that guests talk about is the pool room. The Biltmore Estate pool is a 70 indoor.

It's indoor. Yeah, it's 70,000 gallons. So many pool. There is no water in it.

No, there's not. There's not. No. It had a heating system underwater lights, which was very ahead of its time.

It had ropes along the edges to help people who were in danger. However, the pool didn't have a filtration system. So they had to drain the water and refill it every few days. Can you imagine?

What had been in the booty. That water bill. I can't. That's crazy.

It's not for them, but for like, whoa. For us common first. For us commoners. Yes.

Wow. Most guests who enter the pool room get kind of an eerie feeling. And I will say I did too. When I was in there, it was spooky.

It's creepy. It's spooky. Guests have claimed to feel nauseous or anxious when entering the room and were only able to catch their breath after walking away from the pool. Some claim it's just the shape of the room and how voices echo, but others think it's haunted.

Um, I can see that. I mean, it's a very odd room. And what's interesting about it is the way you walk in. I mean, you're kind of, you could go into the pool.

You could walk into it. But it leads to like the bowling alley and other places down in the basement. Yeah. And it is when you're there, it's this really eerie feeling.

And you don't know if it's eerie because it's this giant indoor pool that has no water in it. Yeah. It kind of feels creepy with the lights on. Yeah.

It's bright. It's very white. Yeah. I can't remember if there's windows in there or not.

I don't think so. Like even the top little windows. I don't remember being very dark, but yeah, it sounds weird because she's just said it was bright. It's bright, but it's dark.

Yeah. There's something to it that. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't know. Some people reported hearing the sound of water splashing even in the pools empty. Others have claimed to hear laughter coming from the drain. I don't know.

There goes more of the water. Let's put more in. From the tree. Yeah.

I don't like that. That feels like someone drowned. We're going to talk about that. A few guests have seen an apparition known as the lady in black in that room as well.

Yes. Let's see. I wanted to talk about the other is a possible drowning. So it's possible that these are all related to a pool death.

There are rumors that a child who was a friend of the Biltmore family drowned during a pool party and continues to haunt the room. However, there are no documents proving this ever happened. And Biltmore say employees deny the event that they say didn't happen. But like how you know?

I mean, you weren't there. You weren't there. You know, probably taking you 100 plus years ago. Yeah.

Well, I'm like, you're thinking about it. You're a wealthy family with like you're not going to advertise. You're trying to be able to come to your home. Yeah.

You're not going to advertise. Where we die. This is why the child drowned. Exactly.

No, no, it's bad for business. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. There were two boys that were killed at the gate of the Biltmore state in 1922, a man named Walter Brooks was guarding the gate when he was instructed to investigate a suspicious vehicle. There were five young men in the car and they said they were going to, quote, take the place. Well, it's unclear what they actually meant.

Brooks saw that as a threat. He ended up killing two and entering one while the other two escaped. I feel like that'd be Randy. Yeah, that's Randy.

You know, when you come to the gate, it was like he looked kind of shady and he just beat us back. So I mean, that was to say, ex-military. Yeah, I'm going to say I'm going to take it. He's like, oh, it will take you.

I know. I'm pulling up and I'm just like, just thinking. I mean, he has seen combat, so I do wonder, you know, I've never asked him just outright like so. How many people have you taken out?

Yeah, people in particular enjoy that question. No, I don't think you would. But I do. I'm curious.

I mean, I don't want to give him any PTSD. Right. No, no, no, no flashbacks or anything. I do.

All right, so I have to leave this place tonight and I have to wait for him. I'm telling you. I'm telling you. I'm telling you.

Thanks Randy. Love you. See you later. So Brooks was charged for killing the boys, but he insists he was just reacting to a threat.

He was also punished for being armed during his trial. So I think, I mean, like he wasn't supposed to have a weapon while he was standing guard. Oh, okay. Because I mean, most like security don't have weapons, which is odd to me.

Randy does. I mean, because Randy has one. I mean, that's a permit, I'm sure. Oh my gosh.

But like, yeah, like you see security in like buildings, you don't have guns. Yeah. What are they going to do to see that? Get out of here, little boy.

Yeah. So I don't know. OK, the Halloween room of the estate is a basement that was initially used to storage. But it's covered in murals on the walls that many guests find creepy.

It's suspected that the room was painted that way for a Halloween event because cats, bats, and other Halloween related images cover the walls. Imagine being that rich that you're like, yeah, we're having this one event. Let's change the entire room. The entire decor.

Yeah. There are no reported tragedies in that room, but many people get the same bone-chilling feeling they get when they enter the pool room or the library. So there's a rumor that the Halloween room is haunted by the apparition of an intoxicated woman wearing a flapper outfit. Workers who thought they were alone in the building have also reported hearing footsteps, voices, and screams.

I think I would be the flapper lady. As I actually just say that. I love Halloween. I partake occasionally in drunkenness.

And I love a flapper dress. Yes. It's true. So I'm here for that.

So the answer is you or you have potential to go in a hot bedways? Both. Wouldn't it be neat at the end of our reign of this podcast if we say the whole time Haley's been a ghost, kind of like, the sixth sense almost? And I'm the ghost whisper.

Mm-hmm. And you're just channeling my voice. I say 10, Haleys. It's me.

Oh, gosh. So there's one other haunted spot that's also on the property. And we actually probably did a full episode on this. Right?

Should you do it? Shiloh Forest or Compound? Yes, I sure did. And it is.