While working alone at night in a moldy, dusty room, Skip Stivers said he heard something no one wants to experience: deep, heavy footsteps treading back and forth overhead. Stivers said he called out and no one answered. So he did what any reasonable man married to a ghost hunter and working in Royal Oak's most historic dwelling would: he snapped pictures with the camera he always keeps handy.
Stivers, an environmental cleaner, took
pictures all over the historic Orson Starr house, 3123 N. Main
Street, and had them developed.
A few of the pictures had the foggy patina that ghost watchers say
shows something otherworldly lurking in the vicinity.
"There were no showings on the upstairs pictures, but there was
something downstairs," Stivers said. "One of the guys who works with
my wife said, 'There's a German shepherd here; you can see it
sitting back in the corner.'"
Stivers says the photo shows a ghostly dog plain as day - though
others with the same picture struggle to identify anything other
than a blank wall.
But the photos were enough to make Orson Starr fans look twice.
Blanche Howard, an Orson Starr volunteer, contacted local ghost
hunter John Tenney and he told her he would visit this spring and
test for ghost infestation. Howard is researching if a German
shepherd ever lived in the house.
Whether or not it's haunted, the ghostly hullabaloo coincides with
the reopening of the old house. The Orson Starr House was closed in
October for restoration and re-opened Sunday with an open house.
For his part, Stivers is convinced ghosts reside in the lower rooms
of Orson Starr, the house named after the man who built it in 1845.
The Greek Revival building is the oldest surviving house in Royal
Oak and stands at its original site.
Stivers' firm, C&N Environmental of Pontiac, was hired in late 2003
to clean moldy sections of the house. Stivers said he definitely
felt a presence inside.
He also said he's felt otherworldly presences and taken photos with
ghostly auras at a home torn down on Troy Street in Royal Oak and
another home in Huntington Woods.
"My wife (Deborah) is a ghost hunter," he explained. "She goes out
with some of her friends and they take pictures at cemeteries, see
and talk to ghosts."
He said his most memorable personal experience with ghosts came at
the Royal Oak house on Troy Street, where he sensed a strong
presence and told the ghosts to show themselves.
Then he snapped some pictures.
"I told them I can't talk to you but I can sense that you're all
around," he said. "I took a picture and there are four figures in
the corner of the room standing in a row. They wanted me to see
them."