“One day I heard it and I was so sure it was a real cat that had gotten stuck up in the attic, I asked one of the cooks to go check it out. When he came down, he said that there was no cat. There wasn’t any evidence that any kind of animal had gotten in recently, either.”
I had to admit, it seemed like there was an awful lot of seemingly supernatural activity at Camp Ticonderoga. It was little wonder the place had been investigated by so many paranormal investigators.
Christy explained to me that she’s not really afraid of the ghosts, but sometimes locking up alone at night is a little nerve-wracking. She said she preferred to turn the lights off in the back first and then make her way toward the front door, so that the last lights to go off are the ones nearest the doors. She also repeated the story I’d heard before about how sometimes doors around the restaurant seem to open and shut by themselves. “One night it happened to me after closing, and I kept calling ‘who’s there?’ but no one answered. No one was here.”
There was another night, Christy told me, when she locked up and headed toward her car in the parking lot. She chanced to turn around and glance back at the building and swore that she saw a pair of blue glowing eyes watching her in the window. “Those windows there, behind the bar,” she told me, pointing to the windows behind the main bar area. She didn’t go back in to investigate. I wasn’t sure I blamed her; I doubt I would have gone back in, either.
CHAPTER 4
Baldwin Theatre
ROYAL OAK
LIVING PRACTICALLY WITHIN WALKING distance of the Baldwin Theatre, I decided to take a chance and dropped in unannounced, even though it was close to Christmas. I knew there was a good chance I might not get to actually talk to anyone that day—but it was a good excuse to walk around downtown Royal Oak and get some last-minute shopping done.
I arrived at the Baldwin during regular box office hours and was greeted by Vonnie Miller. As soon as I explained the reason for my visit, she invited me into the office to talk. Unfortunately, she was the only person in just then and couldn’t actually show me around, but Vonnie confirmed that the theater was “very haunted.” She added that the Baldwin has been in a couple of books and has hosted several “haunted” events, where the audience is presented with the theater’s history, along with its ghost stories.
I’d already read several newspaper articles about the Baldwin’s ghosts and knew that the theater was a favorite stop on Halloween “ghost tours,” as well as a favorite stop for paranormal investigators. There have been numerous pictures of orbs taken on both stages, as well as EVP (electronic voice phenomena) recordings of strange voices, and reports of sharp drops in temperature throughout the theater. It seems that when ghosts are around, the ambient temperature drops significantly. These so-called “cold spots” are a good indication of paranormal activity—after you’ve ruled out all of the logical explanations, like open doors or drafty windows.
Vonnie told me whom I really needed to talk to was Development Director Lesley Branden-Phillips. Lesley was off for the Christmas holiday, but Vonnie gave me her card and suggested I call the following week to set up an appointment.
I took advantage of the bright, mild afternoon to get some shots of the exterior of the building before heading off to do some Christmas shopping. Royal Oak is a hub for the arts community in Oakland County and has been one of my favorite places to visit since I was a teenager. Summer is my favorite time to be there, when the streets are crowded with pedestrians, making it a great time to people-watch. No matter what time of year it is, though, there’s always something fun and interesting happening in Royal Oak.
In March, classical-music lovers can enjoy the Baroque Music Festival, while cinema buffs can travel a couple of miles up Woodward Avenue to enjoy the Uptown Film Festival. April brings Royal Oak’s annual Earth Day/Green Living festival to the Detroit Zoo (which is actually located in the city of Royal Oak). June is marked by an annual fine-art fair, but the big arts event is in late August, when more than 200 musical acts fill up ten stages on Royal Oak’s streets for the Arts, Beats, and Eats festival. For more great food, visit in November for the Annual Royal Oak Chili Cook Off, where professional chefs and amateurs alike compete for the title of the best chili in town. One of these years, I’m going to convince my husband to enter.
Even when there isn’t a fair or festival going on, Royal Oak’s shopping district—about a mile-long stretch down the city’s two main roads, Washington and Main Street—is filled with dozens of specialty boutiques, art galleries, vintage-clothing stores, and an amazing variety of restaurants, pubs, and coffee shops. And in the heart of it all is the Baldwin Theatre, home of the Stagecrafters community theater company. The Stagecrafters originally called the nearby city of Clawson their home. They began there in 1956, when Clawson residents Robert Johnson, then a sophomore at Michigan State University, and Sally Bosz, a senior at Clawson High School, decided to start a summer theater program. With a cast and crew of only 30 people, the company—then known as the Clawson Community Club Players—performed Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit as a part of Clawson’s annual Fourth of July celebration. The play was performed in the Clawson Elementary gymnasium and was declared “a hit” by local newspapers.
Because of the success of their first production, the company decided it needed to move to a bigger venue and was granted the use of the auditorium at Madison Height’s John Page Middle School. With the move to a new city, the troupe decided to change its name, and in 1957 the Stagecrafters company was officially born.
Over the next decade the troupe grew and eventually returned to Clawson, where they purchased an old church on Bowers Street. The first play to debut at the Bowers Street Playhouse was Joseph Kesselring’s Arsenic and Old Lace; the year was 1971. The company continued to grow, and in 1983 the Stagecrafters were invited by the International Amateur Theatre Association to take part in an exchange program with a theater troupe in England. They visited St. Albans the following year to perform on the stage of the Abbey Theatre.
The Main Stage auditorium of the Baldwin Theatre.
By the following year, they knew it was time to move again; they needed a bigger theater with more space for rehearsals, a larger stage, and more room for building sets. When the city of Royal Oak offered them the Baldwin Theatre, the company took up a collection for the down payment, took out a mortgage to cover the rest, and purchased the property. They renamed their theater “The Baldwin.” The article on the Baldwin’s home page describes the restoration on the old, long-abandoned building as both a “Herculean task” and a “labor of love”—after talking to Lesley it was easy to see that that wasn’t an exaggeration.
After Christmas, I called and set up an appointment to come back to the theater. Lesley met me at the box-office door and walked me through the back halls to the lobby, and then onto the main stage. She told me that the Baldwin was originally a silent-movie house and that it was older than the more well-known Fox Theatre, in downtown Detroit. Also, that when it was first built, back in 1922, “the Baldwin was considered the grandest theater in the Midwest.” Looking out at the auditorium from the main stage, I had no difficulty believing that.
“All of this has been restored,” Lesley said, as I was admiring the architectural décor, much of it reminiscent of Greek murals. “All of the murals you’re looking at were covered up by truly awful-looking yellow curtains—we had no idea what we would find behind them. It was a pleasant surprise, but it was a lot of work to make this place beautiful again.” The walls, Lesley told me, had been painted in what could only be described as a hideous shade of “blood red.”
“The auditorium originally seated 1,400 guests, but we knew a community theater would never need that much seating, so we created the lobby area at the back and turned the mezzanine into