Description of Place: A two-story Dutch Tudor residence on two and a half acres of countryside surrounded by woodland, the five bedroom edifice has high ceilings and complex wood furnishings which conceal hidden compartments and secret passageways leading into the basement. Existing in separate stages of disrepair, the location is in a state of long-term restoration. Guests are not appreciated. 

Ghostly Manifestations: Through the Twenties to the Forties, Beckworth Manor was reportedly the site of several séances and Spiritualist activities. The religion had a great movement through the Early Twentieth Century, and contrary to thought, magician and entertainer Harry Houdini was not against the religious movement. Houdini very much wanted to believe that ghosts could contact the living from the other side, but his ire and temper was focused directly at the charlatans and con-artists who abused the religious belief in order to defraud the American public. Although Houdini very much a thorn in the side of many phony mediums and psychics, the religion continued on without him after his death and saw a great resurgence with relatives trying to contact their lost loved ones after World War One, but today, it is not nearly as popular as it once was.

It is known that Harry Houdini paid one visit to Beckworth Manor in 1922 to expose Margaret Vittorio, an alleged medium who claimed she could contact and bring forth the spirits of the dead. Calling herself Madame Carmen, Vittorio was a recurring guest of Walter and Bernice Beckworth, who owned the house. In one session, she made the table rise five feet off the floor, and in yet another, the faces of seven apparitions appeared in the room and circled around the guests. Both cynical and skeptical, Houdini attended Margaret's October 31, 1922 session and nearly jumped backward from the table as a grown man and boy in a striped shirt suddenly landed on the table. No was prepared for their appearance. Screaming occurred, and Houdini watched, the two apparitions rushed to the corner and vanished into thin air, completely stifling Houdini who searched the room for hidden doors. By morning, he was quite ready to reveal Madame Carmen as the real thing... up until the young boy in a fit of conscience came running through the garden to get the master escape artist's autograph. 

While no is is sure just how many séances occurred at Beckworth Manor, either faked or imagined, something has stayed behind. Victoria Abner, the last family member to live there, adds that people have seen and heard things here in the form of voices, creaking floorboards, shapes fleeting around corners and even the random apparition.

"When I was a girl," She grins nostalgically. "I recall hearing a lot about ghost stories in the house, but they never scared me. If anything, I felt protected by their spirits, but when I grew up, I slowly began to realize how creepy and spooky the house could be and started seeing shadows, both real and imagined in the house."

Victoria recalls a few guests who saw and heard things like footsteps, chains rattling and doors opening and closing in the house. Her older brother, Justin, lived on the upper floors of the mansion, and one night as he was in bed reading he heard a door slam loudly. At the time, he was supposed to be the only person in the house, and he had personally locked all the doors into the house. Shadow, a purebred boxer he owned, lifted his head up with ears perched and sat watching and trembling by the bed. Picking up a baseball bat as he left the room, Justin toured the house searching for whoever it was with Shadow following him, but he found nothing. A month later, the same thing happened again and once more, he failed to solve the answer of the noise.

While Victoria was off on a trip to Catalina with friends, her father had the upstairs painted and the wood furnishings cleaned and restored. While standing on a ladder painting one of the rooms, a workman reported he heard the sound of hoof beats on a cobblestone path outside the house. Her father told the painter that no horses were on the property much less a cobblestone path, but later that week, he heard the sounds himself and went out to investigate. Nothing was outside, but that Autumn while digging up the yard for the water line, they ended up unearthing the old cobblestone driveway that once circled the house.

Over the years, several workmen or guests were perturbed by strange noises and activity like whispering sounds or fleeting shadows in the house. Some men refused to work alone or just refused to work on the house. 

Chris Tunney was a long time friend of Edward Beckworth, Victoria's father. They spent a lot of time growing up on Sacramento's north side and met each other a lot on business and pleasure trips. Following a trip to Seattle in 1983, they were having drinks in the parlor, and Edward left to take a private phone call in the study. While he was sitting and reading a book in the parlor, Tunney had the inexplicable feeling he was being watched. The feeling was so strong he later described it as a heat sensation on the back of his neck. Trying to dismiss the incident as his imagination, he continued reading, but then he heard childlike giggling and a flash of movement in front of the fire place and very quickly left the house.

"According to my father," Victoria adds. "From that moment, Chris never stayed alone in one room of the house ever again. During a dinner party, he and my father were heading upstairs to the game room which was the former séance room to smoke cigarettes and play a few rounds of cards. They were reportedly up there a while, I believe up to after midnight, when they started hearing voices and the sounds of people shuffling in the hall. The lights in the room flickered a bit, and my father rose to check the power, but Chris stopped him rather than be left alone. Somewhere in the conversation that followed, he looked into the window and saw the reflection of several people around a table in the glass. I don't think he came back to the house after that."

Later that year, Victoria's Aunt Teresa was upstairs and busily writing a letter. The house at the time was bustling with visiting family members, but toward the middle of the day, the house was empty and she was using the peace and quiet to write a letter wishing her brother's family in Oregon a Merry Christmas. As she was writing, she heard a series of knocks from the next room. Not thinking much of it, she continued writing, but they occurred again much louder and much closer. This time thinking someone was in the house, she looked out of the room, and not finding anyone, she headed downstairs and walked through the house. It was completely empty, but the back door to the kitchen was open and lightly swaying in the wintry breeze. Closing it and latching it, she felt she had solved the source of the noise and went back upstairs. Once more back at the writing desk in the upstairs bedroom, she began writing again, but this time the knocking noises sounded again; this time in the room right behind her. As she turns around to see what it was, her bedroom door slams shut "virtually rattling and trembling ever part of the house from the rafters to the floor boards."

"Needless to say," Victoria adds. "She never stayed alone in the house after that. She either changed her plans to leave with someone or invited someone to come keep her company."

Nevertheless, virtually all the surviving family members have heard the knocking sounds and the bed squeaking, doors creaking and the sounds of phantom cars coming up to the property. Lights and water faucets came on, and the sound of running water has had Victoria wondering who was running water even if none of the faucets were going. These things have been heard and noticed by several people not once but over and over.

One day, Alexis Beckworth was going through the house lightly dusting and polishing the furnishings through the house. As she went through the dining room, she had an uncanny feeling she was being watched and noticed a small shadow pass slowly along the wall and out of the room. Unsure what it was, she had her brother, Drew, casually walk by the window outside the house, but his figure appeared along the wrong wall and was much different. She could replicate the shadow, but she never figured out how to cast it on the correct wall.

According to legend, when Victoria's grandmother passed away, she promised that when she passed on that she would try notifying the family if her presence was in the old house. She very much loved the house and believed it was haunted and was very much convinced that the life force existed after death. After she passed on in her home in Nevada, the lamp in her room flashed on and off three times in her old room in the Eagle Creek house. Victoria believed it was her grandmother's signal, but she never saw her beloved grandmother's spirit in the house, much less that of anyone else reputedly wandering the halls.  

In 1995, Victoria was one of the few people living in the house. Divorced, she and her son, Drew, and daughter, Alexis, who later married and moved to San Francisco, were the only residents of the house. A local syndicated reality show named "Bay City Live" looking for a rare barely publicized haunted house asked if they could tape and perform a séance in the house to summon its ghosts for a Halloween episode. Despite her reticence, Victoria allowed the show to send a film crew to the house to invade her home. At the time, she needed the small fortune they were offering to pay off taxes on the property. Two of the series' hosts, Mark Yeoman and Holly Righetti arrived with paranormal researcher Chase Boreanaz and psychic medium Grace Kang. Following an introductory tour of the house by Victoria, the on-site séance was set to be performed in the upstairs former séance room with a film crew of seven people.

"For over an hour," Victoria recalls. "Nothing happened. Oh, there was a few noises from the house like creaks and groans, and Mr. Yeoman was trying to hold our attention with his wry comments, but just as it seemed nothing was going to happen, the room got really cold. I mean, I could see my breath; that's how cold it was, and the psychic suddenly announced that someone had arrived. Suddenly, everyone's faces went blank. Someone started asking questions.

"Is there an unseen presence in the room?"

The Ouija board on the table pointed to "Yes."

"Will you identify yourself?"

The planchette spelled out. "Miles Meester."

Later research revealed that Miles Meester was the contractor and designer Walter Beckworth had hired to draft and build the house. As a struggling architect, the structure was considered his greatest achievement, hopefully what would have been the start of a successful contracting career, but those aspirations never happened. Later on in life, he died penniless and alone in Los Angeles. Beckworth had him buried in a private plot on the property out of respect.

Through the séance, Meester claimed he had returned to look over the house and that he and Walter were keeping an eye on the place. They warned Victoria to beware of a fire in the house, but nothing ever happened. Activity slowed down after that, but since then, strange noises and sounds still happen from time to time. 

"I don't doubt Beckworth Manor is haunted." Philip Raimey is a local historian and antique shop owner. Over the years, a few former Beckworth Family antiques have passed through his shop and with them, something has stayed connected to them. "I've owned and sold a few objects from the house, and most of them come back. One customer who had acquired a Nineteenth Century table brought it back because they said they constantly heard voices coming from it, but when they noticed a figure sitting at it one night, they had it in a truck and brought it back the next day."  

History: Beckworth Manor was built in the 1920s by bootlegger Walter Beckworth, a local private businessman, who had an interest in Spirituality when he wasn't distilling spirits. As a result, one upstairs room known as the Séance Room has been jerry-rigged for faking paranormal activities, such as a concealed panel of glass for casting images and pipes in the walls for casting the voice unseen across a room. Five generations of Beckworths once lived here until 2009 when the family sold it to pay off overdue property taxes. Victoria Abner, Beckworth's grand-daughter, was greatly distressed by Alan Foster, the new owner, and his choice to gut the mansion than restore it.

Motivated by rumors of treasure in the house, Victoria's son, Drew, murdered Foster in the house by throwing him out a window, although he later pled to self-defense and twenty years in prison. The case was the top news story for a while, but Victoria met with Alan's brother, Daniel, who inherited the house and convinced him to restore it than gut it. To date, the house is still partially gutted and incomplete, but plans to restore it have since been revealed.

Identity of Ghosts: Walter Beckworth and Miles Meester. Victoria also believes there are energies in the house due to years of séances performed here as residual hauntings (place memories).

Source/Comments: The Mentalist (Episode: "Red Scare")/ Voyagers! (Episode: "Agents Of Satan") - Activity loosely based on the Lemp Mansion in St. Louis Missouri, the McPike Mansion in Alton, Illinois, Sprague Mansion in Cranston, Rhode Island, Heilbron Mansion in Middleton, Pennsylvania, the Copeland House in Hingham, Massachusetts, the Anderson House in Des Moines, Iowa and Hill View Manor in New Castle, Pennsylvania.