Historic Home's 'Ghosts' May Help Save It: Watch

Royal Oak Mayor Jim Ellison is a believer.

So is Candace Isaacson.

Something – or someone – still roams the historic 1845 Orson Starr House, named for a New Yorker who migrated to what is now Royal Oak and whose descendants lived there until the city of Royal Oak purchased it in the late 1970s for a museum.

Mostly, visitors to the house hear the voices of a couple of kids, The Observer & Eccentric reports. But paranormal investigators say that on two separate occasions, they have recorded the voices of a woman and an old man talking about killings and other spooky things. The voices have been recorded in both the basement and the main floor of the house, believed to be the oldest in Royal Oak, the investigators say.

Isaacson, the treasurer of the Royal Oak Historical Commission that maintains the property, said a contractor asked to prepare a bid for glass window panes pleaded with her not to leave him alone in the 169-year-old house.

“The last time he was there he heard a woman say hello,” she told the newspaper. “So I had to escort him inside and stay with him because he didn’t want to be there alone.”

The house is listed on the Michigan State Register of Historic Places. Local preservationists want to make other needed repairs, but are short not only of cash, but also revenue streams to generate more. That’s when they hit on the idea of opening the home to ghost tours.

“There is a lot of interest in the paranormal and this is a great way for us to generate money and keep it going throughout the year,” Isaacson said.

The first tour is planned for May. AfterLife Paranormal, a non-profit group that made two recordings at the house, will conduct the tour. Admission will be $25, with $20 going to the Historical Commission and $5 to AfterLife Paranormal.

Isaacson, who is also the lead investigator for the paranormal group, said more tours may be planned if the first one goes well.

Based on what he’s seen in the Starr House, a ghost tour would be popular, AfterLife Paranormal founder Brian Danhause told the Observer & Eccentric.

“To sit in a room with two people, and know you are the only two people in there, and when you ask a series of questions and there is a third voice you know that’s in the room too there is nothing like it,” he said

More Royal Oak Ghost Stories

The plan has the endorsement of both the Royal Oak City Commision, which approved the tour Monday, and Ellison, who said he appreciates the Historical Commission’s creative approach to fundraising.

The mayor said he’s run into the reputed ghost of the Baldwin Theatre, once named the grandest vaudeville house in the Midwest. Today, visitors often report hearing mysterious noises and seeing moving objects and shadowy apparitions of a former actress.

“Say what you want, she’s there,” Ellison said.

Coincidentally – or perhaps not – strange happenings are also reported at a Royal Oak home built by Orson Starr’s son, John Almon Starr, and his wife, Nancy Quick. The structure now houses the law offices of Chisholm & Shuttie.

The building is located near a still-visible trail used by Native Americans, and people have reported seeing aboriginal figures walking along the path.

According to a history of the building on the law firm’s website, the tribes that traveled the trail may have been going from their summer homes along the Detroit River to inland homes in the Pontiac and Saginaw areas. Though there’s no proof the trail was a war path, a study of the Siege of Detroit indicates it may have been used by Chief Pontiac’s braves.

Watch the video below of the AfterLife Paranormal group’s two visits to the Orson Starr House.