KENSINGTON ARMS INN
Location: The Kensington Arms is a deserted and empty structure placed at 1164 Montgomery Street not far from the historic district of Grandview, Pennsylvania, twenty-three miles north of New York City on Highway 9W in Driscoll County between between Orange and Rockland Counties on the Hudson River.
Description of Place: A two-story wood frame Federal with a wrap-around porch and front bay windows, the eighty-year old structure is in a state of dilapidation and was previously going to be torn down, but now that has changed. The structure could be saved or sold as a private residence.
Ghostly Manifestations: The apparition of a small boy is sometimes seen on the top step... Noises of boys arguing in the attic are sometimes heard. The sound of scratching from a dog going up and down the wood staircase from a dog never appears. A guest once woke to see the appearance of boys standing at the foot of his bed then fading away from view. Footsteps echo from the halls. A locked door never stays locked. If you asked anyone in town, they would say that in addition to the local hospital and the Comedy Cave nightspot, that the Kensington Arm Inn is haunted.
"You sure you want to hear about the place?" Dick Abrams was the last tenant of the Kensington and its owner before he sold it. "I can't recall a lot of the stories, nor can I vouch for the stuff others have said they witnessed, but I myself have experienced stuff here." He starts off during a tour of the place.
"That back door..." He points to the back of the foyer where a little room heads to the back porch and an interior stairwell heads upstairs. "...refuses to be locked. The stairway there leads to the second floor where the kids used to come and enter back when this was a home for boys, and I think even today, the spirits of those boys are still coming and going through there, because as often as I lock that door to keep guests from getting access to the basement, I still find it unlocked. I replaced the doorknob, I installed a security lock and I wedged a piece of wood against the bottom, but something still gets through there. One night, I had the block of wood in there and late one night, I heard the block of wood knocked out of the way and found the door standing open. I never heard the security lock being twitched into the unlocked position, but on more than one occasion, I've walked through the back of the place and found it locked and then I'd turn around and suddenly find it standing wide open.
"In addition that..." Abrams remarks with a turn of the head. "I've seen and heard things. Nothing to send me screaming into the night; I mean, they're not scary... but I get curious sounds. I'll be coming down the stairs and I'd hear the voices of boys talking in the parlor. Nothing I can understand or make out, mind you, but just the general sound you have when you have the impression of a couple of boys mumbling together in secret. I'll come in and ask these boys what they're doing here, and no one would be here. Well, that's not exactly right. Mr. Hewitt who used to live here always read the newspaper in there after breakfast, and I'd ask him, "Did you hear some boys in here?" and he'd look around, turn up his ears and say there's wasn't any boys. Now, either I'm losing it, or he just wasn't in a place to hear them.
Abrams also describes sounds like a ball being bounced around the upstairs and being knocked down the stairs. Guests have asked him to stop it from happening, but as soon as it's noticed it's stops, and there's no way to tell what was causing it. Odd scratching noises have occurred through the place, much like a dog whose claws are scratching the hardwood floor, but there's never a dog inside the inn. It's been mostly a home for retired ladies and gentlemen, and no one has a dog much less a cat. Guests have had brief glances when they're not paying attention of something like a big orange dog running loose on the second floor, but it's never found!
"Wherever the dog comes from," Abrams adds. "It does belong to someone, because they've been seen The apparition of a boy... or maybe three boys, because there's three different descriptions of him... have been seen, but rarely together. There's boy with hat, boy in suspenders and just plain boy. They're seen in mirrors and then you turn around and no one's there. You wake up and night and you find them watching you sleep. They peek out from the curtains when you're outside. They're seen dashing from room to room and past the windows outside...
"Back in 1990, maybe 1993," Abrams continues. "I was in back doing the gardening and bushes, and I'm not paying much attention to anyone. I'm thinking and wondering about things and just casually thought I'd come into the house to get a drink. Don't know why, I had a bottle of water out there so I wouldn't be running in and out, but I just wanted something else. I come inside the back way, and there was a man in the foyer holding a package. Well, he sees me, and I see him, and I wander over and ask him if I could help him. He was delivering a package, but I couldn't understand why he just let himself inside. I asked him that, and he said, "Well, the young man let me in." and I'm thinking, "Great, now these figments of my imagination are opening the doors to strangers."
Poltergeist activity happens often, but noises are most frequent. The TV changes channels, the radio comes on and fresh rolls of toilet paper roll from the bathroom at the top of the stairs roll down by themselves, sometimes somehow looping around railings on the way down. A kettle and pot from the kitchen have turned up upstairs, old fashioned marbles have turned up in seats and the floor, the chairs in the dining room have been found pushed out and coins have tumbled from out of no where from the ceiling.
"The oddest thing I can remark about..." Abrams wraps up. "Is that since the place was opened as an inn, there has always been a letter missing from the name out front." He refers to the series of letters nailed to the exterior porch. "They're always popping off. The "K" vanished first, and it was tacked back on, then the last "N" in "inn," then the "O" and at some point the "K" again, never to be seen again. Apparently whatever's here doesn't like the fact that the place was renamed."
History: Built sometime in the Twenties, the inn was originally the St. Michael's Home for Boys established as a shelter for wayward youths, but it burnt down in 1956. It was restored into an inn by 1960 and finally closed its doors in 2007.
Identity of Ghosts: It's been believed the ghosts are those of four boys who died in the 1956 fire. A local psychic who prefers to remain anonymous identifies them as Ronald Aikens Tracy (nick-named Rat by his friends), Martin "Marty" Holliman and Victor Reynolds who died with his dog, Homer, by his side. For years, it was believed there were four ghosts haunting the location; the fourth one being named as Ernie Sutter whose remains were never found after the fire, but it was recently revealed that Ernie survived and actually grew up under the name Tobias Northrop. He reveals that the night of the fire that a new janitor had locked the doors leading down the back staircase and the other boys became trapped while he descended down the outside of the building and tried to find his way inside to rescue his friends. His conscience has always bothered him about that night, and he's sure that the spirits of the boys are still behind, unaware that they are dead and unaware of how much time has passed since the fire.
Source/Comments: Ghost Whisperer (Episode: "Lost Boys"), Activity and history based on the episode and various cases.