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Capitola History |
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Capitola, CA 
. . .  Henry Allen Rispin . . 1930's resident "Rose ??" Last updated 3-17-07
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Secret rooms and passageways. Twisted hallways. |
Evil in the basement. Ghosts. It's all here. |
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Early Rispin Interior Photographs |
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Recent Exterior Photos (below) |
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Dec. 4, 2003 |
Santa Cruz Sentinel, CA - Ramona Turner |
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Dec. 6, 2003 |
Santa Cruz Sentinel, CA - Ramona Turner |
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Dec. 11-17, 2003 |
Good Times, CA - - Bruce Willey |
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Dec 12, 2003 |
Santa Cruz Sentinel, CA - Chuck Anderson |
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Dec. 18-24, 2003 |
Good Times, CA - - Bruce Willey |
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Mar. 30, 2004 |
Santa Cruz Sentinel, CA - Ramona Turner |
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Sept. 03, 2004 |
Santa Cruz Sentinel, CA - Ramona Turner |
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June 27, 2005 |
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 1. Looking North - Wharf Road to the left - watercolor by Bob Newick, Aptos |
 2. Looking North - Front Entrance in 1930, complete with 2 dogs - Capitola Museum Distorted - vertically stretched |
 3. Looking North - Wharf Road to the left - recent - Capitola Tour |
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SOLID CEMENT - Approximate weight = 500 tons or 1 million pounds This place is really heavy, man! |
 5. Looking south out the front door - recent-? - Capitola Museum |
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6. Looking southeast from Perry Park trail - June 2003 - Yours Truly |
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7. Looking south at the north side of the building- July 2003 - Yours Truly |
 8. Looking west toward Wharf Road - recent - Capitola Tour |
 9. Looking South - Creek side staircase along creek side of house circa 1930 - Capitola Museum The "Lady in Black" seems to be observing the photographer from the upper level window. I believe that the window blinds faintly observable on the cement wall are the reflection from the wall behind the photographer, at the Capitola museum (photo of a photo). |
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10. Looking South - Creek side staircase along creek side of house - July 2003 - Yours Truly |
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11. Looking up at patio -
Yours
Truly |
 12. Looking Southwest - Balustrade along creek side of house - recent - Capitola Tour |
 13. Looking West - Creek side View circa 1931 - this view long since obscured by trees - Capitola Museum |
 14. Looking West - Creek side View circa 1931 - this view long since obscured by trees - Capitola Museum |
 15. Looking West - Creek side View circa 1931 - this view long since obscured by trees - Capitola Museum |
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16. Looking Southwest - Cupola - July 2003 - Yours Truly |
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17. Looking Southwest - Architecture along creek side of house - July 2003 - Yours Truly |
 18. Cupola looking north - July 2003 - Yours Truly |
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Circled numbers plus direction correspond to Photo Numbers above. |
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Event |
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1876 |
Capitola founder Fredrick Hihn builds Camp Capitola on the "Beach of Soquel". |
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?? |
Rispin weds Annette (Nettie) Winfield Blake, wealthy heiress and daughter of the founder of Conoco Oil. |
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1900 |
Hihn continues to develop the area through the turn of the century. |
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1913 |
When Capitola's owner F. A. Hihn died in 1913, his daughter, Katherine Cope Henderson, put the entire resort of Capitola up for sale. |
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1919 |
Henry Allen Rispin, a wealthy San
Francisco oil man, bought the resort at the end of World War
I. |
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1921 |
Henry Allen Rispin builds the solid cement 22-room Rispin mansion for $250,000. |
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1928 |
Although he had grand plans to develop "Capitola by-the-Sea," Rispin overextended himself and was broke by 1930. |
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1931 |
He lost his elaborate 22-room
mansion and most of his holdings in 1930-31. |
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1939 |
The Smith family ran into financial problems during The Great Depression and surrendered the mansion in 1939. |
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1940 |
The home was then sold to the Oblates of St. Joseph, a Catholic Church order, for use as a convent by the Order of Poor Clares. |
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1941 |
Nettie Rispin, resident of San Francisco, dies at the age of 59 in Santa Clara county.. |
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1945 |
Allen Rispin, Henry and Annette's only child, dies at the age of 45. |
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1947 |
H. A. Rispin dies penniless in San Francisco, aged 65? Buried in a pauper's grave. |
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1957 |
The nuns resided at the complex
until 1957 - 17 years. |
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1960s |
For a while, was a hippie commune, complete with a herd of goats on the top floor. |
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1970s |
Police dog training was held in the basement. |
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1979 |
See Ghost story |
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1986 |
City of Capitola buys the Rispin Mansion for the purpose of preservation. |
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1991 |
The Rispin Mansion was listed on March 14, 1991 as an "Historic Place in California". |
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2003 |
Sale of the Rispin mansion to the Capitola Redevelopment
Agency (select city council members?). |
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Rispin Mansion Ghost Story (1979) - by Doug Simerly Doug is a former long time Santa Cruz native, now living in Oregon. Thanks, Doug, |
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The Rispin mansion. I have never heard it called that. It was about 4 blocks behind my house, when I was a child. We always called it "Poor Claire's Retreat", as it was called when the nuns were there. It was a very foreboding place, and no one would go near it when we were young. As a teenager, I talked some friends of mine into going in there. There were 4 of us, all guys. We snuck over the fence (heavy wooden one, the guy who lived near it had pit bulls, so we were really quiet.) He watched over the place. Anyway, we peeled back a piece of plywood that was nailed over a window on the main (ground level floor, back side of house.) We had a flashlight, and it was very dark. We entered a small room, and through a doorway, entering the main room in that part of the house. Vaulted ceilings, very large room. There was a fireplace, with book cases on either side of it. As my friends walked down the hallway, I remembered something I had read somewhere, and walked up to the bookcases. They slid open, and there was a small room behind each one of them! Enough room to hide someone, or something! Nothing in there but splashes of ink on one of the walls, could not make anything of them. |
Anyway, we went over every inch of the place, very careful to damage nothing. In the basement there was a red brick hallway, perfectly square, and very long. At the end it looked like a solid brick wall,sort of funny that it ended there. We rested up against the back wall, and it moved! There was a secret room behind it, about 12 foot by 8 foot, I think (it was in 1978 or 79). The wall was on a hinge, very strange. Our batteries were dead by now, so could not see a whole lot. It did not seem scary at all though, just interesting. We did hear what sounded like footsteps a bunch of times, so thinking it was the guy watching the place, we were very quiet. Never saw anyone, spooky. There was one room, that seemed like it must have been the main quarters for mother superior, or whoever. It had a white marble fireplace, and very ornate decorative trim, and very large windows,and a balcony overlooking the Soquel Creek, and facing what used to be a department store, and the doughnut store that my grandparents used to run. You cannot see the business, because it is probably an 1/8 of a mile away, and the trees blocked the view. |
This room sounds like the one where someone saw a lady in the black dress. I never saw anything, did not take pictures,but it felt icy cold in that room, and it was probably 75-80 degrees that day. We all felt things, heard things, but never saw anything. There was something in there, but what, I do not know. I went back quite a few times, it was a very cool place. Unfortunately, some idiots from San Jose saw our car parked outside the gate, and went in there, as we were leaving. They destroyed the fireplaces, and basically trashed the place. We would have trashed them if we knew what they were going to do, but we did not know it until we came back the next day. Someone stepped up the security of the house, and we heard the dogs inside of the house, so we split in a BIG HURRY,and did not go back. I will always remember that place, and I was very glad to hear it is being turned into a bed and breakfast place. It was beautiful, with facades, and balconies, and looked like something right out of a horror novel. |
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Please note that the mansion is now HEAVILY SECURED, and contains an infrared ALARM SYSTEM connected directly to the Capitola Police Station. |
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Order of Poor Clares - Poor Clares convent - Poor Clairs retreat California haunted house - Capitola Historic Mansion - Rispen Estate - Capitola prohibition Vaughn's Summaries (One-Pagers) ©2005 Vaughn's One-page Summaries This Vaughns Henry Allen Rispin Mansion summary web page was last updated on 2007-03-17. |