Thursday, January 13, 2011

Wolfe House/Andleberry Estate, Clovis, CA

Edited 1-15-2011: Photos Added



Now known alternately as the Wolfe House, Andleberry Estate, and the Clovis Sanitarium, this large, imposing house sits on Clovis Avenue in the city of Clovis, near Fresno, California. Built in the first half of the 20th century, the house is said to have served as a private home for two different owners, an insane asylum, and a convalescent hospital before finally closing. It was bought by Todd Wolfe, who decided to use the creepy old building as a Halloween "Haunted House" attraction. He created a new name and implied fictional history for the house, and i became "Andleberry Estate" founded in 1871.

Local lore, and Wolfe's own stories, hold that he got a real haunted house and not just a Halloween attraction.



Talking to locals indicates that this place was rumored to be haunted before it was even abandoned. After it was abandoned, stories about mysterious lights being seen in the windows, screams heard coming from the house, and just general creepy feelings when passing the house began to proliferate. One of my coworkers has even said that, during the 90s, his father would tell him ghost stories about the house every time that they drove past it. Local legend holds that it was used as a sanitarium, that it housed over 100 people at a time in bad conditions, and that there were thousands of deaths at the house. It is also claimed that, when used as a convalescent hospital, it was known for neglect and mistreatment of patients. Needless to say, rumors abound that the doctors working in the sanitarium would use patients as experimental subjects, causing them misery.

Since the house was bought by Wolfe, more stories have come out. People who have stayed in the house overnight on Wolfe's invitation (usually members of various ghost hunting groups, though national television shows have also filmed here) report hearing loud banging noises throughout the night, drafts of cold air moving through the house, the sounds of footsteps in rooms where nobody is present, having clothing tugged on by unseen forces, and hearing conversations taking place in empty rooms. Some who have stayed in the house report that doorknobs can be heard turning on doors which no longer have knobs, that clanging noises can be heard, that doors open and objects move of their own accord, and that tape recorders pick up ghostly voices that seem to interact with the conversations of the living also recorded on tape. The basement is cold, even in Fresno County's very hot summers*. Lights have been seen moving in the basement. Many of Wolfe's guests report feelings of dread, emotional (and in one case even physical) pressure, and general unease. Some visitors have even reported bringing a guest home with them - a male presence that is manifest as the smell of cigar smoke and low voices and laughing, a presence that the people had to return to the house to be rid of.



Three particular rooms are said to be the most haunted. In one, called Mary's room, if a chair is moved it is said that the chair will move back. Another, called the Red Room, is said to be the site of numerous ghostly sounds, all of them related to a busy hospital ward. The third, called George's room, is said to be special, but none of the web sites that I have found tell you anything specific about it.

The house is easily accessible, though it is on private property and therefore shouldn't be approached without the owner's permission. If the stories that I have heard from friends and coworkers are any indication, it is now firmly ensconced in the folklore of the Fresno area.




*Okay, I just have to say that this is not all that weird, and the people who comment on it are generally from outside of the San Joaquin Valley area. As someone who, for professional reasons, spends alot of time in holes in the ground, I can say with some authority that the sub-surface of the San Joaquin Valley is typically cooler than the surface during the summers. In fact, there's a popular Fresno attraction - the Underground Gardens - which was constructed for this very reason.


Commentary: Someone on another entry thanked me for my "investigation." While I appreciated the thanks (it's fun, but not always easy, to put these entries together), I have to admit that I am not an investigator. How can you tell that I am not an investigator? Easy, I have not gone down to the Fresno County Assessor's Office to look up the ownership history of this parcel of land, nor have I gone to the local historical society for information on the medical history of Clovis. Of course, neither have most of the self-proclaimed investigators, which is how you know that you should take their conclusions with a heaping spoonful of salt. Doing this sort of background research is a long, often tough, and typically tedious process. I don't do it because I have a job, a partner, and other hobbies, but it's okay in my case because I don't call myself an investigator, I'm just a guy who tells the stories and doesn't claim any special knowledge. If you are going to call yourself an investigator and claim some sort of objective backing for your claims, then you have a responsibility to do this sort of basic background research. Unfortunately, most self-styled paranormal investigators don't, opting instead to swallow urban legends regarding the history of a property in place of doing basic research.

One thing that became very clear as I began to do Internet research on this house is that there is very little about it online that has not been directly influenced by the current owner, Todd Wolfe. As I read what accounts I could find, I have to admit that I began to develop a very real admiration for Mr. Wolfe - this guy is smart, a good showman, and likely a clever business man. Sounds like a really cool guy, and I'd love to meet him. However, when you start learning about his operation, it puts most of what is readily available about this house into doubt.

According to most reports, Wolfe works with the various ghost hunter groups in order to try to piece together the history of the house. The history that has been developed by these folks indicates that the house was built in the 1920s by an Italian immigrant who was in a competition with his brothers regarding who could build the most impressive house. From there it was sold to a family who lived in it until they sold it to a couple who developed it into a sanitarium. The sanitarium is said to have been a horrific place, with thousands of deaths over its functioning years. From there, it became a convalescent hospital, which was rife with troubles from neglect and mistreatment of patients.

Now, don't misunderstand me. For all that I know, this history could be absolutely true. the problem is that it has been put together by people who are looking for a reason to think that this place is haunted, and as a result it is likely that the people cobbling it together selected the more sensationalist information that they received without necessarily scrutinizing it for accuracy. This is pretty common in the paranormal investigator circles, where distorted death figures, local folklore, and urban legend are often accepted without the investigators doing even the most basic of research at the local Assessor's office, county courthouse, library, or historical society - all of which have documents that could confirm or discredit many of the claims. The ghost hunters understandably want to find ghosts, and in my experience tend only to be willing to go so far in trying to vest the information that they gather, so only the easiest to dismiss tends to get dropped, and even widely disproven information gets propagated (). Todd Wolfe has used this land as a haunted house attraction, has offered tours for a fee, and has made public his intention to develop the property into a "haunted hotel" to lure paranormal tourism to Clovis.

So, in the end, it's possible that the history of the property available on line is accurate, at least in the broad strokes, but it was put together by individuals with a definite interest in finding the place to be as sensationalistic and spooky as possible. That the "insane asylum" angle gets played up more than the time that the house was used as, well, a house is no surprise then. Nor is it a surprise that Mr. Wolfe apparently puts his gifts as a showman to work when allowing various ghost hunter groups to take night time tours of the house. One account by a member of a group invited by Wolfe describes the evening in detail. While the author of the account seemed ready to take everything at face value, a few things should be noted:


1. The Assistant. Mr. Wolfe provided an assistant to stay with the tour group. On the whole, this is pretty normal, for liability reasons if nothing else. However, the author of the essay says that the assistant was there in case "anyone was injured or had an emergency." B-movie fans may remember this sort of ploy from the opening of The Screaming Skull. Start the creepy evening off with something that is made to sound ominous and scary. A good way to set the psychology of the tour group, and the term for this sort of thing is "ballyhoo." It's cool, it's fun, it sets the scene.

2. The News Media. In this case Wolfe had arranged for the ghost hunters to meet and be interviewed by members of the press. The result, as the writer of the piece notes, is that everyone felt special. Of course, underlying that is that everyone felt special because they were there to find ghosts, which adds pressure to them to find said ghosts. It gets publicity for the house, and gives the people intending to investigate a push to reach a particular conclusion.

On other occasions, the people brought their own television shows (such as the cable show Ghost Hunters) and had their own reasons for acting to the cameras.

3. Placement of props/creepy atmosphere. Halloween haunted house props were left up in some rooms, taken down in others, preventing anyone from getting used to them. The basic effect of this is likely to be that they remain a little disorienting, and one isn't sure what to make of a room that does have them or a room that doesn't have them - which room is special?

4. Verification of the Real. At the end of the tour, Mr, Wolfe allowed members of the group to go into a room where records pertaining to the house were kept. While these records had little to do with the house's alleged hauntings, they did allow the members of the groups to get a feeling of the antiquity of the house, and for the stories related to the house to seem grounded in reality.



Yeah, no pressure at all from the props.



Okay, biasing or not, the props are pretty damn cool.


Read the entry to see how effective this was. While the author was certainly inclined to see ghosts from the get-go, he began to interpret everything as ghosts: drafts (not uncommon in old houses, even with windows and doors shut) were thought to be not only ghosts but specifically the ghost of a child, all strange sounds (even those that one would expect in an old house) were interpreted as supernatural, and every light-reflecting mote of dust (likely the actual cause of these particular "orbs") was interpreted as a spirit photo.

Mr. Wolfe is, to his credit, very open about his ongoing business interest in the house, and is not trying to hide it while the mythology is being spread. He may not admit to the showmanship, but he doesn't appear to be trying to hide that either. This allows those of us who want to look past the hype to see that there's something more at work than a simple quest for the truth. There is business to be done here. Hell, the description of the "most haunted" rooms (George's Room, Mary's Room, and the Red Room) are even geared towards renting these out as rooms when the hotel is operating.

Is there something truly spooky happening here? I don't know. Certainly some of the stories pre-date the use of this place as a haunted business. But there is reason to be doubtful of the accuracy of the reports coming out of this place. Is this a cool place that deserves some attention from ghost story collectors and enthusiasts? Oh, it most definitely is. If and when Wolfe opens his hotel, I intend to book a room for a night.

Oh, and there's a YouTube channel dedicated to this place. check it out.

Special Videos:

Because I love my readers, here's some special videos. I love how the first video uses music in an attempt to make the most boring or silly of images seem scary.







Sources: Ghost Map, AP Investigations, Internet, Internet, The Illustrious Internet, Internet

28 comments:

  1. instead of chasing this poor ghosts, you people should pray for them, so their souls could go to heaven and rest in peace!

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  2. A) I'm not chasing ghosts, I'm just collecting stories.

    B) If you are going to preach at me, let me direct you to this: http://anthroslug.blogspot.com/2008/06/my-deconversion.html

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  3. My team would like to set up an investigation here. Do you happen to have or know where i can get the contact information to set up an appointment? i have been searching the web but have had little luck. thanks!

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  4. No, I don't. I'd have to go through the same channels as you to get that information. You might, however, want to try contacting the County Assessor's office to see who/what organization currently holds the title to the land. You might be able ot contact them.

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  5. My Mom was an LVN there for years working the night shift and never saw nor heard anything out of the oridinary....

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  6. I live in Fresno. Most the Paranormal groups want to go there...but the city is trying to demolish the property as it is a hazard and is condemned. However...there are others of the opinion that the city of Clovis doesn't want this kind of publicity associated with their name. Tod has not let anyone into the building for some time now. Haunted? Who really knows!

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  7. All I can say is this: I was born and raised in Clovis and everytime I passed this place, not only as a child, but also as an adult, I felt the gloom and sadness related to this building before I even had heard any stories at all. I had never told my children of this and when it was a haunted house attraction, my son and girlfriend went there and the minute my son got out of the car, he became dizzy and sick to his stomach. (And no, he does not drink). My birth certificate says I was born in Clovis Sanitarium and I do know that for several years in the 1950's it had a maternity ward. I was born in 1957 and like I say, this place has creeped me out my hole life.

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  8. oops! typo, I do know how to spell whole!

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  9. I grew up just down the street from this place, and every time I would go near it I have felt the sadness. I have a family member that worked there when it was a sanitarium, but I did not have the chance to talk with her. I went in there once when they were doing a haunted house, and I could not finish it. I was sick and horribly freaked out.

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  10. I volunteered one time there it was my first and last, props and volunteers kept going off and the show is only one way, and no one ever came to our spot, then one time the prop and volunteers next to us went off, then a minnute later our lights in our section goes out, there were two girls who were volunteering with me they freaked so i went searching for the power cord, and found it and plugged it in only thing was to get to the power cord you had to squeeze in a small space to plug it in, the girls and I were the only ones capable of doing so, so someone or something which we couldn't see unplugged those lights for us to scare us, the prop we were on was some kind of dental table with old rusted scalpels in the droors, the Wolfe Manor would be the ultimate scary place to be propless. People can probably just tour the house and experience stuff.

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  11. Replies
    1. Does todd have a face book ??

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    2. yes, look up Todd Wolfe, you'll see a guy wearing sunglasses in a car.

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    3. The reason Todd hasn't "let anyone in" is because the building hasn't met code in like- a decade. He hasn't had the cash to bring it up to code because he and his partner have been separated, with a divorce in the works. He failed to bring the building up to code and it has since been demolished.

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    4. I remember the building was up for sale not long back. Was it demolished, or bought and moved?

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  12. I've been inside this house on a tour, before all the "hype" had been set up. I paid for a private tour. There were about five of us, all my family and friends, and Todd. He never left us. I've always been sensitive to ghosts and paranormal activity. I caught a couple of pictures that were interesting, including a face that showed up in some curtains. I heard footsteps, felt some interesting feelings. Overall, I felt very peaceful in that house, especially "Mary's Room." Like she knew we were there out of curiosity and respect and we meant her no harm. I love that house. I agree, that it seems like he is using the media to build up his business. That being said, I have no doubt, based on my personal experience, that the place is haunted.

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    1. There was no "Mary". She was fictional. Bad things happened at this house & I'm glad it was demolished.

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  13. Have you, by any chance, posted these photos online where my readers might be able to see them?

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    1. This manor as featured on Ghost Adventures and Dead Files jfyi, not sure if you're aware. I'm sure you can upload some of their vids.

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  14. I myself was invited to a private tour of Wolfe Manor in 2009 if i remember correctly.A night tour that started at 1am. During that time the extended part of the hospital was still there. Aside from the manor ive seen and experienced my share of paranormal incidents.. So yea.. Im a believer.. I did experience a sense of weight on my shoulders while on the tour. Witnessed strange sounds as well.. But what got me the most wasnt while i was on the tour.. But what i had brought home and the 3 weeks that followed my visit to the manor. At home my doors were being opened while i was away. At Mynight i would hear footsteps im my livong room. My dog would growl at a corner of my ceiling for no reason. Hed sit and stare at the same spot minutes on end.. The last night i experienced anything i had come home late one night my french door was completely chewed up and shatterred by my dog.. I found him scratching at the wall below the corner that he always stared at. All i could think was to yell out" Get out of my house! You are not welcome here!" And i swear until this day i havent seen or heard anytjing ever again. U can Believe it or not.. I know what i experienced.. Exciting.. But scary as hell!

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    1. I believe you, that can happen, particularly with malevolent spirits or demons. I had hit happen to me when I did a cleansing of a home with a demon in Manteca, the entity bothered me for several weeks after until I happened upon a marble statue of the archangel Michael stomping on the devil and put it by my bedside (I was having a lot of death dreams and was unable to sleep) along with just bad luck, bad energy vibes, saw things--which isn't unusual for me, but it was different. I definitely brought something home. I used some sage in a mist form as well and told it off.

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  15. In the 70's and 80's my cousin told me it was haunted. We had an uncle that lived there named mike. He was spooked by a lady in his room and a rocking chair that she sat in. My mom, aunt and uncle s played with spirit boards and contacted a spirit called ace who said mike would die. He did die after running from that place and crashing his motercycle into a semi. I have never ever forgot that house nor the stories. The green trim, the stairs on the side....it really is haunted

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  16. I live a few minutes away from Wolfe Manor and unfortunately it was demolished yesterday by the City of Clovis due to the owners failure to act on code violations that would've cost $750,000 in repairs (which he couldn't afford). Also the police and FD were called out numerous times a year due to break ins / vandalism, fires set on the property etc but it's a shame to see a piece of history destroyed like this.

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    1. I heard that. If I were in a position to have done so, I would have loved ot have bought and moved the house.

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    2. Well nevertheless, the property will still remain haunted, possibly even more so with pissed off spirits....I think they were already mad when the hospital wing was torn down...

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  17. Is this place still standing? I heard Todd was going to tear it down...

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