Detroit — I’m hoping to catch a glimpse of ethereal beings. The enthusiastic barkeeper tells me that “folks sometimes see the spirit of the old man standing behind them.”
I didn’t come here to hunt for ghosts though. I’m just intrigued by an exquisite Detroit parcel that just happens to be haunted, allegedly, and I can’t help feeling the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
The resplendent neo-Romanesque façade of The David Whitney House, known as “The Whitney,” stands apart from its Midtown surroundings striking a mercurial pose along Woodward.
The legacy of the home and its original owner seems less known to Metro Detroiters than the urban legends and spooky supernatural myths surrounding this federal and state historic site.
David Whitney Jr. was a young East Coast lumber baron from Lowell, Massachusetts, who moved to Detroit and expanded his empire through the Midwest. Married with four children, Whitney was a generous father to his children, although held to odd and peculiar tendencies not out of step with the billionaires of today.
Whitney, keen to mimic the lavish lifestyles of Detroit’s wealthiest aristocratic elites, constructed the home according to his very esoteric tastes at the height of the 1890s Gilded Age to impress his wife.
Lumber being Whitney’s main business, the estate’s interior is a masterpiece of interior woodworking and design, complete with stained glass from Tiffany & Co and three stories of awe-inspiring arches and ceilings. A truly unique American mansion housing the first working residential elevator in Detroit’s history, the estate gives off subtle hints as Whitney’s personal psyche exhibited best by dining room wallpaper depicting babies shooting each other with shotguns, as babies tend to do.
The end of the Gilded Age corresponded to the end of Whitney’s life in 1900. His family resided in the home for several years, then ownership changed hands multiple times until 1979, when a businessman named Richard Kughn converted the estate into a restaurant.
This is when the legends of The Whitney began to flourish. Employees started noting bizarre things. Quiet whispers of hauntings began emanating through Metro Detroit.
Employees told me that they’ve seen strange shadows move along the tapestry-covered walls of the south dining room. Place settings rearrange themselves after a split-second turn of the head. A woman was seen standing in the mirror of the ladies washroom. Perhaps most unsettling is the sound of children heard in the carriage house, once used as a hospital for the youngsters with tuberculosis and other life-threatening ailments.
I’m not a believer in lingering phantoms, but even I felt the odd sensation that I was not alone. Inside the 19th-century elevator—said to be one of the most haunted locations in the estate—I heard a faint voice speak into my right ear, as if a wraith was standing just over my shoulder.
Standing by the third-floor railing overlooking the spectacularly adorned stairwell, I spied the carriage house through the rear stained glass windows, again feeling a pull to see what disembodied specters awaited.
“Oh, you really don’t want to go in there alone, sir,” the bartender said. “Most can’t handle it. Word is something might follow you out of there.”
Now I was intrigued, and needed a closer look. Exiting the front doors and walking around towards the rear of the building, the carriage house appeared even larger and more foreboding. I stood for what seemed like an eternity gazing up at the windows. My legs felt encased in cement, and a wind chased straight through me. Something, I don’t know what, did not want me to go in. The valet seemed aware of my hesitancy, chiding me: “Pretty weird feeling looking up at that, no? It’s the most haunted area of the estate. I wouldn’t go in alone.”
My mind drifted to Stephen King’s “The Shining.” The parallels to the Overlook Hotel are impossible to ignore.
Perhaps the spirit of the estate, very likely the ghost of David Whitney Jr. himself, relishes the company of constant visitors to his spirit’s extravagant final resting place—according to the official record, Whitney died in the home on the second floor—and is quite proud of his final project which he only lived in a short time after completion.
But maybe something else, something more capricious dwells in the carriage house. Perhaps one day I’ll have the temerity to find out.
Jay Murray is a writer for Michigan Enjoyer and has been a Metro Detroit-based professional investigator for 22 years. Follow him on X @Stainless31.
