After The Whitehall Home, getting a little turned around, and my first meal ever at Qdoba, we decided to continue our creepy old house kick.
This time we snuck in on the last tour of the day for the Conrad-Caldwell House.
This home is in Old Downtown Louisville in a beautiful old antique neighborhood.
There isn't adequate AC in the home so they give you these little fans. At first I was laughing, about two minutes later, I was fanning vivaciously.
I love tours. Not because I love being a tourist but because I am a top notch people watcher and there are few people who are more entitled than those on vacation, spending $10 for a college student to give you a tour of an old (of course haunted) house.
Fancy staircase with fleur-de-lis, which were a common motif in the home, reoccurring hundreds of times!
You get all kinds of people on these tours. We got:
-(1) A man obsessed with descriptions of the different types of wood in each room (see Kyle pretending to be interested when the docent explained the wood on the door).
-(2) A woman who had to know who every single person in every single painting/ portrait was (don't remember who this guy was, because I wasn't listening).
-(3) A couple of woman who already knew everything about the home including what the parquet floor pattern was inspired from Amish quilt blocks.
-(4) Pretty much every one obsessed with death and haunting spirits ("someone died on these stairs, in this bed, in this nightgown")
-Of course everyone wanting to take pictures/ video of everything
Let me think of some highlights of the tour. It was all pretty epic due to my short attention span and smart-alec-y attitude. I'm pretty sure if I was a docent I would just make stuff up. Not to be mean or misleading, but just to keep things interesting.
For example, I would tell everyone that this was a fancy toilet. It was very top-of-the-line for it's time. It was imported from France. The maids would throw the waste out the window into central park and that was the main reason why the park was so lush and green.
Highlight #1
--We are touring the home, when the docent stops in a hallway. She explains the small staircase and how it was used for businessmen who would come to the home for meetings. She mentions there is nothing in the back except for a bathroom that has fixtures that are all original to the home, so we can go back there to check it out if we would like. *no one moves* And just as we are about to move on, she mentions that back there is also the staircase to the basement where Mr. Conrad had a heart attack and died. *everyone becomes interested and pulls out their cameras as they rush over*
Whata bunch of sickos! You never cared about it until you found out someone died over there? ...
That prompted a conversation with the docent about what ghost experiences she has had in the house.
But speaking of ghosts, am I the only one who thinks the mannequin wearing a freakishly small wedding dress is creepy?
Please note that doll in the background has real, human hair. Gross.
Highlight #2
--The docent was very informational about the objects in the house. Whether they were original to the Conrads or the Caldwells, or just period pieces that were donated. She mentioned that this tablescape was original to the home but the table itself was donated. Kyle leans over to me and whispers that it's probably just a crummy IKEA table and that's why we can't touch it. Haha.
Highlight #3
--The aforementioned professionals who already knew everything about the house took it into their own hands to semi-argue about the current viability of this antique sewing machine. "What year is that machine?" "Well MY grandma has one that is only a year older and THAT one still works!" "What broke?" "Could it be fixed?" "Let me see, a lot of the times these old machines still work!"
And one of the 4 (yes FOUR) people who felt the need to take part in the Old Louisville Sewing Professionals Club conversation, pushes past the rope and proceeds to shove her face mere inches from the artifact.
*smh* some people and their boundaries... just calm down.
But in all sincerity, it was a really interesting tour. Lots of history and fun stories. One of my favorites was this Pillsbury Cookbook. Being the dork I am, I had to wonder what kind of recipes it had (but you don't see me pushing my way past the rope to leaf through it).
The children lived upstairs and the daughter had a beautiful view of what was then a very large Central Park. Now it pretty much just smells like sewage and has homeless people sitting on the benches. C'est la vie!
At the end of the tour Kyle and I were just checking out some woodwork, making ghost jokes when the docent startled me and gave us a lesson about the woodwork. Not knowing what else to say, I asked if she could take a picture of Kyle and I by the beautiful mirror in the hall.
Ghost jokes aside, and moving on the vampire jokes... where is her reflection?! What is that glowing orb in the top right corner of the mirror?!?!?!
Ahhh!! Everything in the South is so freaky.
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