193 Lemp Mansion

Content advisory: This episode discusses several deaths by suicide in the Lemp family. If you or someone you love is struggling, call or text 988, the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (U.S.), any time.

Is the Lemp Mansion Haunted?

In this episode, Ghostly heads to the Lemp Mansion, and we have a special guest. Kyle Maiden spent the night at the Lemp while driving Route 66 across the country, and he tells us what happened after the last staff member went home. Pat tells us the sad history of the Lemp family.

Special Guest: Kyle Maiden

Kyle Maiden is the founder of Picard, Projiq, and HUMAN Project Delivery, an innovator in project management delivery, and the host of Project Management After Dark. On a cross-country trip down Route 66, which once ran right through St. Louis, he booked a night at the Lemp Mansion. He came back with stories, and he shares them with us on this episode.

Follow Kyle on Instagram: @kyle.maiden

The History

German immigrant Johann Adam Lemp arrived in St. Louis in 1838 and is credited with bringing lager beer to the city. His son William built the Lemp Brewery into the largest in St. Louis and bought the mansion at 3322 DeMenil Place, connected by tunnel to the family’s lagering caves. Then tragedy took over. Favorite son Frederick died at 28 in 1901, and William Sr. shot himself in his bedroom in 1904. Daughter Elsa died by suicide in 1920. Prohibition shut the brewery, which sold at auction in 1922 for a fraction of its worth, and that December William Jr. shot himself in his office, in the same house where his father died. Charles Lemp, the last of the family to live there, followed in 1949. The mansion became a run-down boarding house until the Pointer family bought it in 1975 and turned it into a restaurant and inn. In 1980, Life magazine named it one of the most haunted houses in America. In September 2026, the Pointers put it up for sale. It stays open through December 2027.

The Hauntings

The Lavender Lady — William Jr.’s ex-wife Lillian, who wore nothing but lavender. Guests report a purple apparition, the scent of lavender by her portrait, and a smoky silhouette of a woman caught on film in the bar doorway.

Charles and his dog — the last Lemp, still said to walk the halls with his Doberman. Investigators asked, “Is there anyone here with us?” and caught a dog barking on the recording.

The man with the key — a 2004 tour group found a guest room standing open with a key in the lock, then remembered passing a pale older