Lemp Mansion is located in St. Louis, Missouri.
Said to be one of the ten most haunted places in America, the Lemp Mansion in St. Louis, Missouri, continues to play host to the tragic Lemp family. Over the years, the mansion was transformed from the stately home of millionaires to office space, decaying into a run-down boarding house, and finally restored to its current state as a fine dinner theatre, restaurant and bed and breakfast.
The family bought a beautiful mansion near the Brewery, at 3322 South 13th Street (now DeMenil Place). The family married well, particularly William Lemp Jr., who married Lillian Handlan, a railroad supply heiress called the “Lavender Lady” because of her preference for that color; her horses’ harnesses were even adorned in that particular shade. Their divorce 10 years after they were married was the talk of the town and scandal of the decade.
But all was not well in the family—even though their business was thriving and they were treated like kings and queens everywhere they went in the city. In 1901, William Lemp Sr. lost his son Frederick who had a heart problem, and three years later, he shot himself with a .38-caliber revolver in his bedroom in the Lemp Mansion.
After his father’s death, William Jr. turned the mansion into the company’s headquarters upon assuming the reigns of the company, and all was well for a spell.
But then Prohibition hit the United States, which spelled doom for the Lemp family. On March 20, 1920, Elsa Lemp Wright (a daughter of William Lemp Sr.) shot herself in her home on tony Hortense Place (“This is the Lemp family for you,” William Jr. is reported to have said when he arrived at the scene.)
In 1922, William Jr. announced he would sell the property, and on December 29th of that year, he dismissed his secretary from his office and shot himself in the heart.
Book a tour here: https://www.lempmansion.com/lempexperience.htm
https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/and-thats-why-we-drink/e/51774263
