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LOCATION:
Bradmar Tudor Manor can be found,
in a large and exclusive, well-to-do, sparsely populated area in the countryside,
outside the city in Denver, Colorado. The Manor is located at the end
of a long road, that is lined with giant cottonwood trees. It is privately
owned, so respect the owner's privacy.
Address: 4100 South University Boulevard,
Denver, CO 80210.
DESCRIPTION / HISTORY:
This immense, 20 room mansion was
originally built in 1920, by a wealthy family for their daughter, and
spared no expense. The daughter, Ethel, lived in this mansion, that she
dearly loved, with both her husbands. After her second husband died, she
continued to live there another 20 years. When she died, it really fell
into disrepair, abandoned by all, until Dr. Bradley & family saw it,
and fell in love with this unique mansion. Described as a "hulking,
deserted, white elephant", vandals had taken over and had trashed
the inside, and had broken over 100 windows. Despite it's disastrous shape,
the Bradleys felt "a quiet feeling of security there", and bought
this ultimate fixer-upper opportunity. They immediately started a massive
restoration project, to bring the Bradmar Tudor Manor back into mint condition,
sparing no time or expense, in a similar attitude / manner as the original
builders had felt.
The manor's bricks were of the finest
quality, imported from England, as were the gigantic hinges on the 3 inch
thick, solid oak doors. The drawing room has 30 ft long timber beams,
15 inches deep, & 18 inches high. This mansion has a great hall, with
a marble floor & offshoot halls, which divide / separate the mansion
into 2 complete wings, which are connected on the second floor, by a balcony,
that crosses between the stair cases. Dr. & Mrs. Bradley claimed the
suites in the second floor wing, which are over the first floor drawing
room and solarium. The wing on the other side of the great hall has on
the first floor, the library, dining room, butler's pantry and kitchen.
Over these rooms, on the second floor, are the guest rooms.
On the first floor, past the kitchen,
one can find the breakfast room, utility rooms, halls, and finally the
back entrance. The Bradley's 3 teenage sons lived in the old servants'
quarters located above these back rooms.
MANIFESTATIONS:
Mrs. Bradley had kept a careful record
of all the supernormal incidents, which showed an average of 6 incidents
a month. The Bradley's had noticed a normal pattern, and when something
out of the normal happened, they knew that a big event was going to happen
in their lives. When forewarned of these life surprises, they also felt
a feeling of reassurance that things would work out to their benefit.
Beginning MANIFESTATIONS:
1) One of the first incidents experienced
had the purpose of letting the living know that they had unseen house
mates. While the floors were being sanded, when they first moved in,
all were sleeping in Dr. & Mrs. Bradley's suites, way in front of
the manor. The interior decorator, Mrs. Bradley's cousin, who was living
with them, was awakened by the slamming of the back door, that was downstairs,
clear in the other wing. The slamming door, echoing throughout the manor,
had been carefully locked, as had all the other doors. Concerned, the
interior decorator started to hear the shuffling sound of bedroom slippers,
that older women like to wear. He went to the balcony, to see if anyone
was in the great hall below. The moonlight from the undraped windows
shown brightly upon the marble floor, making it very bright, and easy
to see clearly in the hall.
When the shuffling entered the great
hall, he felt a tingling sensation / chill of the unseen presence. Feeling
afraid, he bellowed at the unseen entity, "Ethel, if what I'm doing
to the house isn't satisfactory, you better tell me, before it's too
late!" The shuffling stopped, so he went back to bed, a little
shaken. While lying there on his bed, he heard the shuffling start up
again, going toward the back door, and then heard the slamming of the
door once again.
2) Some unseen entity wasn't pleased
at first about the fact that electricity was being restored. When the
electrician was putting in new wiring, some entity kept foiling his
attempts, even undoing the braided cable, that was carefully, and expertly
fed through the conduit, and properly connected.
Examples of Continuing MANIFESTATIONS
3) From the beginning the electricity
and bell system seemed to have "a life of it's own." Lights
would go on and off at will; sometimes with self- moving light switches,
sometimes not. Bells sounded in the middle of the night, which included
the maid's bell in the kitchen as well. Sometimes at night, the family
heard footsteps walking throughout the house, with the lights going
on and off, as the footsteps traveled from room to room. The wiring
was checked, but nothing was found to be amiss.
4) Lights in the chandelier in the
library would flare up brightly, as if to agree with a point made in
conversation.
5) A psychic friend of the Bradleys
was visiting with them in the library. As soon as she walked in, the
lights "practically danced," flaring up bright, then dimming,
then flaring right back up . After she left, the lights calmed down.
6) Before going to work one early
morning, Dr. Bradley went to the drawing room to light his cigar with
the weighted, bulky metallic lighter on the table. Imagine his surprise,
when the lighter gently arose by itself up in the air, and floated slowly
through the air, landing softly about a foot away on its side, without
making a sound.
7) A massive, heavy bronze chandelier
which hung in the great hall, bobbed up and down on it's long chain,
sometimes as hard as it could go. The Bradleys had reinforced the ceiling
clasp, so it won't jerk itself lose.
8) While practicing on the baby
grand piano in the drawing room, the youngest son, was surprised to
see the top 4 keys in the right hand being played without any help from
him.
SOME REPORTS THAT DEFY NORMAL EXPLANATIONS:
1) Mrs. Bradley looked into her purse
for a handkerchief she knew she had put in it. She closed the purse,
and opened it again, to find 3 green, plastic mermaids, about 2 inches
high, lying on top of her missing handkerchief.
2) While raking trash in the front
yard, the Bradley's middle son saw out of the corner of his eye, a thing
floating very slowly through the air, softly landing on the ground.
It was a green apple tied to a wire, described as a very weird object.
There was no place that it could've come from normally.
3) The Bradleys had really particular
tastes when it came to Christmas decorations; only the first-rate, top-notch
ones would do. When getting Christmas decorations down from the attic,
they found an unknown box, labeled Halloween Lollipops, and inside there
were 6 crudely made pottery angels, who were unelegant, fat, and dumpy;
not the sort of thing the Bradleys would ever consider purchasing. When
a friend of theirs, pointed out to them, that the angels looked pregnant,
the Bradley's attitude changed toward these unattractive angels, as
Dr. Bradley was an obstetrician.
PSYCHIC RESEARCH:
1) When the problems with the lights
were first happening, Dr. Bradley had a meeting with a famous medium,
Arthur Ford, at Ford's home. This medium went into a trance, and told
him that an elderly couple had lived by themselves for a long time in
the mansion. As she liked the place to be completely dark, the wife
kept all the blinds pulled over the manor's many windows, keeping everything
in the dark. When her husband would have enough of living in the dark,
he would angrily go all over the mansion, snapping on the lights. But
she would follow right behind him, snapping the lights off again. The
medium told Dr. Bradley that they were still doing it. After this meeting,
the Bradleys invited the former head housekeeper over for a visit. She
immediately noticed how bright and sunny the inside of the manor was,
and told how her former mistress insisted on having a dark house.
2) As mentioned before, the Bradleys
had kept careful records of all the incidents, and had discovered that
overtime something out of the established pattern happened, it meant
that something was about to happen. The following two examples make
this point.
A) When Mrs. Bradley heard big explosive
sounds coming from her cabinets at night, she knew that the next day
was going to be a lulu.
B) After the lights had come on
by themselves 5 mornings in a row, at 4:30 a.m., the Bradley boys
became very ill, but they did recover.
It seems that the spirits of the former
owners became fond of the Bradleys, despite their annoying love of having
a bright home, instead of a dark one. The Bradleys loved Woodburn Manor,
as much as the former owners, which must have endeared the whole family
to these entities, who had chosen to remain, and participate in their
lives, while watching over them at the same time.
Dr. Bradley did write a book about
their experiences, called Psychic Phenomena: Revelations and Experiences,
which expounds on his personal theories.
Still Haunted?
Yes, the entities of Ethyl and Hubert
Work are still haunting the place. Dr. Bradley sold the mansion in 1980.
The people who bought it didn't stay long, but the mansion is now owned
by people willing to live with eccentric ghosts. |
