“We found no sound evidence he ever lived there, so I’m skeptical,” said Hitchens, who added that ghosts hampered his film crew at other Hollywood locations. This year, “In Search of Haunted Hollywood,” scrapped filming at the ruins because producer Neal Hitchens couldn’t confirm that the magician lived there.
“Houdini resided in Hollywood for about two years, yet I’ve never been able to discover where he lived,” Zolotow said.Ī Halloween television special two years ago in which William Shatner played host was filmed at the Houdini ruins. Another Hollywood writer, Maurice Zolotow, in 1979 researched Houdini’s life for a Los Angeles Magazine article. Schessler insists Houdini lived at the house in the early 1920s and refuses to change any reprintings of his Hollywood guide. “I heard about the controversy, but I proved it by finding it in a directory of some sort,” Schessler said. The oldest of the books, “This Is Hollywood,” was written by Kenneth Schessler, who lives in LaVerne. Half a dozen tour guide books of Hollywood mention 2398 Laurel Canyon Blvd. High brick walls and thick grottoes make it easy to get lost. The maze of walkways often lead to nowhere, or to cold stone meditation areas draped with poison oak. “It looks like seances go on pretty regularly around here,” Snyder said. High up on the hill was a large wooden cross with half-burned candles and strands of beads. Deeper into the gardens, mounds of candles were melted over a broken stone bench. In one cave, pentagrams and triangles were drawn on pillars in orange crayon. On a recent stroll through the labyrinth of stone bridges and pagodas, workers were cleaning up the three flights of stairs and empty waterfalls. “When I was a kid, I climbed around this place and heard it was haunted by Houdini-it was just something everyone knew,” said Rod Snyder, 42, who is now the real estate listing agent for the 3 1/2 acres listed at $2.5 million. The spirit of the victim is said to frequent the grounds. Sightings of the lady in green lingerie stopped years ago, but some say they still see the tall dark man with suit and bow tie.Īnother legend about the grounds involves the son of a large department store magnate accused of throwing his lover off the balcony of the house in an argument. Tenants in the servants’ quarters in the back told Pearson how Houdini’s ghost wanders the grounds quietly. It’s sitting out in the middle of the woods in Highland Charter Township, just west of Haven Hill Lake.Although there is little evidence that Houdini lived in the house, legends and believers abound. Today, you can visit and walk through these remains of good ol’ Edsel’s gaudy getaway. The stables also burned and the barn collapsed thanks to heavy winds in 2008. You can still see the stonework, some foundations, markings where the rooms used to be, and the stone chimney. Today, the remains sit in the Highland State Recreation Area…I say ‘remains’ thanks to a fire that destroyed the whole place. A fire was caused by vandals that burned the place to the ground in 1999. The state used it for a conference center for a while but closed it down during the 1980s. The gate house was home for the head of security, who was also the farm administrator.Īfter Edsel died in 1943, Eleanor decided to get rid of it – she sold it to the State of Michigan, hoping it would be used as part of a park project.
Other inclusions were a carriage house – which turned into a playhouse for the kids – and the gate house.
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