Denver Colorado

Bradmar Tudor Manor

This golf course building was once a private
home of the spirits of the original owners.

The original spectral owners adopted the
Bradley family, becoming caring co-residents.

DESCRIPTION/HISTORY

The Bradmar Tudor Manor is an immense 20-room mansion, originally built in 1920 by a wealthy family for their daughter, and they spared no expense. The daughter, Ethel, who was married twice, was dearly loved, with both her husbands. After her second husband died, she continued to live in the mansion for another 20 years.

When she died, it fell into disrepair, abandoned by all, until Dr. Bradley and his family saw it, and fell in love with it. Described as a “hulking, deserted, white elephant”, vandals had taken over the Manor and had trashed it inside, breaking over 100 windows. Despite its disastrous shape, the Bradleys felt “a quiet feeling of security there”, and bought this ultimate fixer-upper opportunity. They immediately started a massive restoration project, to bring the Bradmar Tudor Manor back into mint condition, sparing no time or expense, in a similar attitude/manner as the original builders.

The manor’s bricks were of the finest quality, imported from England, as were the gigantic hinges on the three-inch-thick, solid oak doors. The drawing room has 30 ft long timber beams, 15 inches deep, and 18 inches high.

The mansion has a great hall, with a marble floor and offshoot halls, which divide it into two complete wings, which are connected on the second floor by a balcony that crosses between the staircases. Dr. and Mrs. Bradley claimed the suites in the second floor wing, which are directly above the first floor drawing room and solarium. The wing on the other side of the great hall includes the library, dining room, butler’s pantry and kitchen on the first floor. Over these rooms, on the second floor, are the guest rooms.

On the first floor, past the kitchen, one can find the breakfast room, utility rooms, halls, and finally the back entrance. The Bradleys’ three teenage sons lived in the old servants’ quarters above these back rooms.

MANIFESTATIONS

BEGINNING MANIFESTATIONS

One of the first incidents experienced had the purpose of letting the living know that they had unseen house mates.

When the Bradleys first moved in, the floors were being sanded and all were sleeping in Dr. & Mrs. Bradleys’ suites, in the front of the manor. The interior decorator, Mrs. Bradley’s cousin, who was living with them, was awakened by the slamming of the back door, which was downstairs in the other wing. The slamming door, echoing throughout the manor, had been carefully locked, as had all the other doors.

Concerned, the interior decorator started to hear the shuffling sound of bedroom slippers, which older women like to wear. He went to the balcony, to see if anyone was in the great hall below. The moonlight from the undraped windows shown brightly upon the marble floor, making it very bright, and easy to see clearly in the hall.

When the shuffling entered the great hall, he felt a tingling sensation/chill of the unseen presence. Feeling afraid, he bellowed at the unseen entity, “Ethel, if what I’m doing to the house isn’t satisfactory, you better tell me, before it’s too late!”

The shuffling stopped, and he went back to bed, a little shaken. While lying there, he heard the shuffling start up again, going toward the back door, and then heard the slamming of the door once again.

Some unseen entity wasn’t pleased at first about the fact that electricity was being restored. When the electrician was putting in new wiring, some entity kept foiling his attempts, even undoing the braided cable, that was carefully, and expertly fed through the conduit, and properly connected.

EXAMPLES OF CONTINUING MANIFESTATIONS

From the beginning the electricity and bell system seemed to have a life of its own. Lights would go on and off by themselves, sometimes with self-moving switches, sometimes not. Bells sounded in the middle of the night, which included the maid’s bell in the kitchen as well. Sometimes at night, the family heard footsteps walking throughout the house, with the lights going on and off, as the footsteps traveled from room to room. The wiring was checked, but nothing was found to be amiss.

Lights in the chandelier in the library would flare up brightly in the presence of witnesses, as if to agree with points made in conversation.

A psychic friend of the Bradleys was visiting with them in the library. As soon as she walked in, the lights “practically danced,” flaring up bright, then dimming, then flaring right back up. After she left, the lights calmed down.

Before going to work one early morning, Dr. Bradley went to the drawing room to light his cigar with the weighted, bulky metallic lighter on the table. Imagine his surprise, when the lighter gently arose by itself, and floated slowly through the air, landing softly about a foot away on its side, without making a sound.

A massive, heavy bronze chandelier, which hung in the great hall, bobbed up and down on its long chain, sometimes as hard as it could go. The Bradleys had reinforced the ceiling clasp, so it wouldn’t jerk itself loose.

While practicing on the baby grand piano in the drawing room, the youngest son was surprised to see the top four keys on the righthand side of the keyboard being played without any help from him.

SOME REPORTS THAT DEFY NORMAL EXPLANATION

Mrs. Bradley once looked into her purse for a handkerchief she knew she had put in. She closed the purse, and opened it again, to find three green plastic mermaids, about two inches high, lying on top of her missing handkerchief.

While raking trash in the front yard, the Bradleys’ middle son saw, out of the corner of his eye, a thing floating very slowly through the air, softly landing on the ground. It was a green apple tied to a wire. There was no place that it could’ve come from normally.

The Bradleys had really particular tastes when it came to Christmas decorations; only first-rate, top-notch ones would do.

While retrieving Christmas decorations from the attic, they found an unknown box, labeled Halloween Lollipops, and inside there were six crudely-made pottery angels, which were inelegant, fat, and dumpy; not the sort of thing the Bradleys would ever consider purchasing.

When a friend of theirs pointed out to them that the angels looked pregnant, the Bradleys’ attitude changed toward these angels, as Dr. Bradley was an obstetrician.

PSYCHIC RESEARCH

When the problems with the lights were first observed, Dr. Bradley had a meeting with a famous medium, Arthur Ford, at Ford’s home. Ford went into a trance, and told him that an elderly couple had previously lived by themselves for a long time in the mansion. As she liked the place to be completely dark, the wife kept all the blinds pulled over the manor’s many windows. When her husband had had enough of living this way, he would angrily go all over the mansion, snapping on the lights. But she would follow right behind him, snapping them off again. The medium told Dr. Bradley that they were still doing it. After this meeting, the Bradleys invited the former head housekeeper over for a visit. She immediately noticed how bright and sunny the inside of the manor was, and told how her former mistress insisted on having a dark house.

The Bradleys kept careful records of all these incidents, and discovered that over time that if something out of the established pattern happened, it meant that something was about to happen. The following examples make this point.

When Mrs. Bradley heard loud explosive sounds coming from her cabinets at night, she knew that the next day was going to be a lulu.

After the lights had come on by themselves five mornings in a row, at 4:30 a.m., the Bradley boys became very ill, but they did recover.

It seems that the spirits of the former owners became fond of the Bradleys, despite their annoying preference for having a brightly lit home, instead of a dark one. The Bradleys loved the Manor, as much as the former owners, which must have endeared the whole family to these entities, who had chosen to remain, and participate in their lives, while watching over them at the same time.

Dr. Bradley wrote a book about their experiences, called Psychic Phenomena: Revelations and Experiences, which expounds on his personal theories.

STILL HAUNTED?

Yes, the entities of Ethyl and Hubert Work are still haunting the place. Dr. Bradley sold the mansion in 1980. The people who bought it didn’t stay long. Fortunately, it is now owned by people willing to live with eccentric ghosts.

The property was sold to a private golf club that is mostly open during the day and early evening, leaving the home to the spirits at night.

LOCATION

4100 South University Boulevard
Denver, Colorado 80210

Bradmar Tudor Manor can be found in a large and exclusive, well-to-do, sparsely populated area in the countryside, outside the city in Denver, Colorado. The Manor is located at the end of a long road, lined with giant cottonwood trees. It is privately owned, so respect the owner’s privacy.