Description: Over twenty acres looking out on Lake Klompus, an idyllic mountain lake excellent for fishing, the beautiful landscape boasts fine hunting, long trails, camping sites and various annuities. There are thirty different cabins in addition to stables, a pool house, tennis courts, recreation center and admissions lodge. The cabin in question is at the end of the north path overlooking the lake. The rustic two-room cabin has a fireplace and bathroom and rests atop an incline over the late.

Ghostly Manifestations: Beginning in the spring of 1961, several guests at the Lake Klompus Lodge began reporting strange activity in one of the cabins. Some of them reported that in Cabin 12 in view from the lake that a strange figure moved through the structure and vanished in the shadows. Others were intimidated by an odd invisible presence they felt but could not see. One honeymooning couple checked out quickly when they saw the rocking chair rocking steadily by itself in the middle of the night. Other guests complained that someone kept knocking on the door all night and wouldn’t let them get any sleep.

Another guest complained that someone, or something, was lurking around the cabin and slipping in and out unseen because things were being moved or left in odd places. A set of water skis were left crossing the floor one night and a suitcase was once found balanced across the backs of two chairs back to back as another young couple awoke. One certain pretty young brunette once testified she looked in a mirror and saw a man with a mustache standing behind her. Since it wasn’t her husband, she spun around to confront him, but there was no one there.

Considering the numerous complaints, the lodge closed Cabin 12 and forgot it was even there for three years. On September 30, 1964, television entertainer Alan Brady used the obscure haunted location to launch his short-lived hidden camera show, “Sneaky Camera.” Four people associated with his regular series, “The Alan Brady Show,” were then invited to stay in the cabin and be subjected by several special effects that simulated hauntings as Brady had their reactions secretly taped for the new show.

One odd thing happened: while the four were being filmed in the living room, the shadow of an inexplicable fifth person crossed the back wall of the bedroom behind them.

Over the years, activity has been few and far between, but then for unknown reasons, appearances and things re-occur for no apparent reason. After the lodge closed its doors in 1973, it remained inactive except for owner Steve Arquette living on the property. He never thought about the ghost in Cabin 12 during the whole time until his son-in-law expressed a desire to reopen the lodge as a summer resort in 1982. No one had claimed to have seen anything on the grounds for five years until one summer night in 1988. Rebecca Bouchard, the assistant manager and several employees were approaching the main lodge with Rebecca leading, but that night, she became aware that someone, or something, might be waiting inside.

“I walked through the back entry into the staff lodge, straight up the stairs with my hand out, reaching for the switch to turn on the light..." She described her experience. "As I approached the bottom of the stairs and just before I was ready to turn on the light, a feeling came over me that somebody was right there.  I stopped in my tracks and really just didn't move. I didn't have an overwhelming feeling of fright, but something definitely or someone was there. It just kind of took my breath away.”

According to staff outside on the deck smoking cigarettes and drinking around the sitting area, there was another simultaneous activity occurring above them at that time. While Rebecca was inside looking for the light and having her experience, they noticed the figure of a woman in one of the upstairs rooms. At the time, they all thought she was a guest, but then someone realized that room was supposed to be empty. By that time, she had stepped backward and vanished from sight. Heading up a few minutes later, they found the room empty as expected, the door locked and nothing disturbed.

"Looking back now," Talent coordinator Greg Bishop who was among the witnesses that night explains. "She just seemed to have an ethereal unnatural form to her. She looked real, but she wasn't. It's just sort of hard to explain. It's like trying to tell the difference between a real person and the image of a person in a photo."

When the story reached Steve, he was more than eager to tell the story about Amos Chance haunting the place, but when he heard the ghost had been a woman, his face practically went white. He had no knowledge of a female ghost haunting upstairs Room 3 before nor were there any more stories of her for a while. Afterward, a steward or two reported that someone in Room 12 was ringing room service and asking for drinks to be delivered to the cabin, but no one was ever out there. The most odd thing about the calls is that there is no working phone in Room 12. That line had been ripped down by a storm in 1978.

"Over the years," Rebecca reflects. "We had umpteen people seeing someone loitering around Cabin 12, but Abe (the lodge's security guard) never found anyone out there. Guests who rented it never stayed the night or complained someone was letting themselves in and out with a key. This went on for... Oh, I think about a few years off and on before we once again took Cabin 12 off the roster, and once we did that, guess what? Our female apparition showed up again."

On Fourth of July Weekend 2001, the lodge was featuring a massive holiday gathering with almost two thousand people expected. Every room was booked, every cabin had guests in it. Two guests from Schenectady had decided to walk around the lake and got lost. Several minutes after their friends reported them missing, they reported that they had noticed a mysterious woman in white with long blonde hair coming around the water and vanishing in view of the main lodge.

At roughly the same time, a van of college kids coming up the driveway reported that they had accidentally struck and hit a woman who had emerged suddenly from behind a tree. They felt the impact, watched her body and long blonde hair flail against the van and then drop to the ground. Terrified and shocked, they rushed to check on her, but no one was in the road. Apparently, out of fear of being found with alcohol in the car, they vowed to keep the account a secret, but after stories of the ghosts got out, one by one they all shared their stories.

“All seven of them had the same exact story." Rebecca adds. "She lingered for just a few seconds and then vanished. All seven of them described a thin wispy figure of a woman with long platinum blonde hair. I have yet to see her myself, but she's been seen a few times."

Diana Macklin, a former chef for the lodge, had her own account a few months later.

“I was walking down toward the lake with my flashlight, and the light was getting dimmer and dimmer." She explains. " By the time I got to the edge of the lake and the rocks, my flashlight wasn't working. So I had to turn around and go back… As I was coming behind the lodge, something made me turn my head and I saw her floating through the trees silently as if she was carried by a breeze, but there was no breeze. There was no wind that night and it was cold and chilly. I was awestruck, and not only was I certain that I was looking at a ghost, but I had a very strong feeling of sadness.  She was very sad.”

History: The Lake Klompus Lodge has had a long uneventful history since it opened in 1923. Presidents and politicians have stayed there including President Jimmy Carter in 1976. Rumors have it during Prohibition illegal liquor was still being sold there because the message had arrived yet and didn’t get to it until after the prohibition act had been repealed. Al Capone is rumored to have once stayed here, but this is unconfirmed.

The location was documented in Alan Brady’s short-lived 1983 series, “Ghost Stories.”

Identity of Ghosts: The staff and guests of the lodge have long believed that the north cabin known as Cabin 12 is haunted by Amos Chantz, a inveterate gambler and regular guest at the lodge through the 1950s. He always stayed in that north cabin and often booked it well in advance under the auspices of a fishing trip, but it is believed these trips were actually covert card games with local gamblers. In the Fall of 1960, just before the lodge closed for the winter, he had won big in a poker game with several shady figures. That night, he vanished, and his body was eventually found buried under the cabin by lodge employees under some loose floorboards about a month after opening. No one was ever brought to trial for the murder, but rumor has it that Amos’s confused but benevolent spirit is still searching for the money that may still be hidden in the cabin.

As yet, no one has a clue to the identity of the platinum blonde. Her appearances seemed to start up after June 18, 1975 when Lindsay McKenna, a lifeguard for the swimming park on the other side of the lake drowned. In fact, that was what Michael Enslin predisposed in his book, "Ten Haunted Getaways," however, a bit more extensive research reveals that red-haired Lindsay vanished in 1987, well after the ghost had appeared. Perhaps, Enslin was misinformed by his contacts, because a woman named Lindsay McGuire did die following a tragic car accident on June 8, 1975 when a tractor trailer sliding in rain knocked her off Highway 17. Regardless, this incident occurs no where near the lodge.

Comments: The Dick Van Dyke Show, Episode “The Ghost of A. Chantz” Loosely based on the hauntings of Covewood Lodge on Big Moose Lake, New York, Big Moose Inn in Old Forge, New York and the Fisherman’s Cottage in Herkimer, New York.

Michael Enslin from "1408" (2010)

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