The fright-fest of a lifetime

I was pretty excited last week making arrangements to take part in the Laurel Hill cemetery tour, on the grounds of Grey Towers National Historic Site ( greytowers@fs.us ) given every year in conjunction with Halloween. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend due to unforeseen circumstances.

Hopefully, I will be able to attend next season but just thinking about it sent shivers up my spine as I recalled a different Halloween, in a different mansion, not so far away. Talk about unforeseen.

There are spooky mansions scattered throughout upstate New York, and I grew up with one such place just around the corner from home. The Roberson mansion ( www.roberson.org ), located at 30 Front Street, Binghamton, NY has a rich history.

Construction began in 1904 under the direction of C. Edward Vosbury, a prominent Binghamton architect. Under the guidance of Alonzo Roberson, Vosbury designed an Italian Renaissance Revival-style house replete with all of the “modern conveniences,” including an elevator, combination gas and electric lighting fixtures, a dumbwaiter, intercom system and a private bath for each bedroom. As in many mansions of the period, there was also a billiard room and ballroom on the third floor. The design also included a three-story servants’ wing in the back of the house. The home was completed in May, 1907 at the astronomical cost of $107,500 for the house, stable, fence and landscaping.

I spent a good deal of time at the mansion, which was opened to the public in 1954, as Alonzo’s will provided for the establishment of “an education center” in the Front Street home after its use by his widow.

I took part in performing at Roberson’s “Playhouse By The Rivers” which then morphed into the “Twin Rivers Playhouse” in the early ‘70s after the addition of the Museum’s Science Center wing and the newly constructed art theatre complex.

As teenagers, my pals and I were transfixed by the place. Silk damask had been stretched on the walls of the reception room and main hall, which were painted, stippled and glazed before being decorated with Dutch metal, stenciling and hand- painted decorations. Each room on the first floor had a different type of woodwork.

Inspired by the history and incredible decor, our imaginations would run rampant with the inevitable ghost stories we had all heard about the house. Rehearsing shows late into the night in the annex awakened images in our young minds of the apparitions that were rumored to occupy the ballroom, the basements and the enormous array of intricately detailed bedrooms on the second floor.

Brazen, foolish and “just plain crazy” are words that spring to mind as I recall the gang deciding we should hold a seance around midnight, after all the adults were gone. Ouija board in tow, we made our way up to the third floor, lit candles and placed the board on the floor in front of us, attempting to conjure up spirits from the mansion’s past.

Honestly, to this day, I’m unsure of what actually transpired that night. One thing I am sure of, however, is that the Ouija Board is not a toy and should not be played with by anyone, much less teenagers out looking for a “fun time.” We did the obvious, holding hands and asking the spirits to communicate through the board. The stylus moved, as it always does, and spelled out all sorts of words that we scribbled hurriedly, trying to make sense of it all.

We heard strange sounds, footsteps and creaking floorboards. We shivered, we trembled, we screamed. One of the girls observed her purse fly across the room as we all shrieked and ran to the four corners of the ballroom, bemoaning our imminent death and cursing the ghosts that seemed intent on scaring the living daylights out of us. We got what we were looking for: the fright- fest of a lifetime and we fled, careening throughout the mansion, bumping into each other and screaming, screaming, screaming. We tossed the cursed Ouija board into the trash and raced out of the house, into the streets, gasping for breath and doing a body count to make sure we had all emerged unscathed.

Truly frightened, whether by our own vivid imaginations or honest-to-God spooks, we made a pact never to explore those possibilities again, and vowed to always travel the inner sanctum in pairs from that day forward. We did screw up our courage to report the spooky adventure to the curator of the Roberson Museum, who appeared to be unruffled by our histrionics.

She looked us up and down and reminded us that we were students of the theatre. “Shakespeare said it best, my dears,” she said, wagging her finger at us. “Hamlet, Act 1, scene V: ‘There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’” I still quote Shakespeare from time to time, but avoid mansions and graveyards whenever possible. Will I get to the Laurel Hill cemetery next Halloween? Probably, but will not be bringing a Ouija board along for the ride.