New Jersey's most haunted house? Could be Strauss Mansion … – Asbury Park Press
ATLANTIC HIGHLANDS – At a glance it’s a typical old book, a somewhat-worn hardcover shelved among others in the second-floor library of the Strauss Mansion Museum.
But the 500-page “The Victrola Book of the Opera,” published in 1917, did something odd last year.
While giving a tour of the mansion, Atlantic Highlands Historical Society board member Patty Bickauskas spotted the book perched on the edge of the top shelf, cracked open and “just dangling” at a bizarre angle.
“I don’t know how it did not fall,” she said.
Shortly before the tour, Bickauskas had walked through the cozy library. Everything was in place. Her conclusion: No one moved the book.
At least, no one among the living.
“Over the years we’ve caught voices on video, heard piano keys playing, had someone see an image in a second-story window,” Bickauskas said. “Some of it, I’m a skeptic about. Some of it, we can’t explain.”
Ghost hunters of various stripes have visited the Strauss Mansion in the past. Earlier this year Bickauskas invited New Jersey Paranormal Investigations, a research team helmed by longtime Brick resident Barry Ruggiero, to dig into the mystery.
Of the scores of places they’ve visited, Ruggiero said, the Strauss Mansion ranks right near the top in terms of recorded activity on their instruments.
“This was the first time we went into a place where we had some type of instant activity,” he said. “Is that positive proof that it’s haunted? No. But that’s very unusual.”
In this 21-room Queen Anne-style house, built in 1893 for a wealthy New York merchant family, “The Victrola Book of the Opera” is far from the only thing lighting up ghost hunters’ devices. But it’s been perhaps the most consistent.
“There’s something about this book,” said Sandy Burkard, who is part of Ruggiero’s team. “It seems to be a hot spot.”
There have been 14 owners of the Strauss Mansion. The first was Adolf Strauss, who built it as a summer home with spectacular views of Sandy Hook Bay. Atlantic Highlands was a major turn-of-the-century resort because of ferry and train service from the Big Apple.
Strauss and his wife Jeanette were dead by 1907, and the property became a revolving door. By the 1970s, the mansion fell into disrepair as an illicit boardinghouse. It was condemned in 1981 and purchased by the Atlantic Highlands Historical Society.
“They were about to bulldoze it,” Bickauskas said.
With high-ceilinged parlor rooms, a hand-carved wooden banister and stained-glass windows, plus an observation tower that rises above the neighborhood like a vintage haunted-house spire, it’s an imposing place. A low-budget horror movie, “Don’t Go in the House,” was filmed there in 1979.
The real story is more arresting. In 2014 society board member Louis Fligor, who was standing outside the house, reported seeing a black apparition pass across the second-floor bathroom window. In 2021 a security video recorded a male voice clearly yelling “get out!” at Bickauskas and some other visitors.
“Nobody heard it at the time,” Bickauskas said.
The mansion is not decked out like a theme-park haunted house, although there is an old wooden coffin that’s been the basement for longer than anyone could remember (empty, for the record). The main mission here is to preserve history. None of the furnishings are original; they’re all authentic donations from the late-Victorian period. Old maps and newspaper clippings line the walls. Like any 130-year-old structure, it has warts. The roof must be replaced and the furnace is on its way out.
Earlier this year, Bickauskas struck a deal with Ruggiero and New Jersey Paranormal Investigations: Run some fundraiser ghost-hunt events (which all have sold out) in exchange for free rein to investigate the mansion.
“It’s a fine line for historic sites,” Ruggiero said. “They don’t want to be known for ghosts, but there’s revenue to be made from it.”
Ruggiero founded New Jersey Paranormal Investigations 12 years ago after a brush with the paranormal at Gettysburg, which is said to be one of the most haunted places in the world. Earlier this year he retired from his day job as a dog-boutique owner. His calendar is bursting at the seams; he’s giving a presentation tonight at the Ocean County Library in Toms River.
“We are like Santa Claus when it comes to October,” he said. “Everybody wants us.”
His team is comprised of volunteers and their case studies are free of charge. What they report at the Strauss Mansion is a consistent flow of paranormal readings in the library (formerly Adolf Strauss’ bedroom), a child’s wooden desk that sits in a third-floor bedroom, and the basement.
Sandy Burkard, who is a realtor by day, has been studying a third-floor bathroom in a wing of the house that is closed to the public. This part of the mansion was never refurbished; it remains in its 1981, cracked-plaster state.
Bickauskas said a former tenant told her about a drug-overdose death in the bathroom, although she’s never found documented proof. Burkard said there is some evidence of paranormal activity in the bathroom; the research is ongoing.
“A haunting doesn’t have to be from something catastrophic or murder,” Ruggiero said. “I tell people all the time: What you see on TV or in the movies is just that — TV or the movies. Maybe a family has fond memories and they want to come back and revisit?”
Take “The Victrola Book of the Opera,” for example. The book was published 10 years after Adolf Strauss’ death. It was donated to the mansion at some point.
New Jersey Paranormal Investigations has studied the tome forward and back. Did Strauss or his wife love the opera? Did a later inhabitant? Was there a reason it was cracked open to page 8, which features the New York Metropolitan Opera?
This is not Hollywood. Sometimes, there are no answers.
Barry Ruggiero’s presentation at the Ocean County Library in Toms River begins at 7 tonight. For more information or to register, visit www.theoceancountylibrary.org/events or call (732) 349-6200.
Jerry Carino is community columnist for the Asbury Park Press, focusing on the Jersey Shore’s interesting people, inspiring stories and pressing issues. Contact him at jcarino@gannettnj.com.
