LIVING HISTORY
and third floors, especially the third, which
was converted from an attic into five offices
38
totaling nearly 1,000 square feet, and
in particular, in a northeast corner office.
The “activity” so intrigued Phillips that
he had two psychics and a number of
witnesses come to the building one night.
The psychics said that they felt the very
strong presence of a woman. When they
asked if she would show themselves to
them, the presence refused.
Phillips and the rest of the group went
outside the building and stood on the
sidewalk, looking up at the attic windows
in the gabled roof.
“It appears to be the silhouette of a
woman standing there,” says Phillips.
“We saw the shadow move between the
middle window to the south window.
Seven of us saw it, and the eighth person
couldn’t see it.”
LIGHTS ON
One morning, Phillips received a phone
call from a man who drove past the house
every night when he got off work at the
nuclear power plant. “He said, ‘You don’t
know me, but when I drove by tonight,
every light in the building was on.’ I told
him the lights were not left on, especially
on the third floor, and when I arrived the
following morning, no lights were on,”
says Phillips.
Perhaps the story that is most told is
the one of the copy machine repairman
who went to the third floor and saw an
apparition that was dressed in Victorian
clothes and vanished into a wall.
The present owner, Ziskinder, who
has never experienced anything unusual
in the building, says he has heard
people say they could smell strong
coffee being brewed, even though there
was no coffee nearby.
He recounted the story of another lawyer
who had papers neatly placed in 10
Some people have reported seeing the ghostly figure of a woman in the attic window on the third
floor of the Boston House, particularly on moonlit evenings.
sets of documents. The lawyer returned
to his office one morning to find that all the papers had been
rearranged in random order, no two papers alike, a task that
would have taken many hours.
A friend of the attorneys, who is affiliated with law enforcement
and therefore doesn’t want his name used, has
been in the building four times with the sole purpose of collecting
some evidence of a ghost. He says he has recorded the
distinct laughter of a woman.
“I was there with another person and we were looking at a
door that was closed and we thought had opened. The other
investigator’s hand was on it and it pulled shut. There were
instances of hearing footsteps, and of people feeling suddenly
ill. Some of it you can pass off as the psychology of it, but that
laugh and the door shutting … there is something odd going
on in that house.”
Because of stories like that, the Boston House has received
recognition in a number of books and stories detailing ghosts
on the Treasure Coast.
Phillips embraces his association with the Boston House
and at one point even had a “Ghostbusters” T-shirt made for
his law firm. He gets calls from news reporters around Halloween
to tell his stories. But the thing he is most proud of is
the work the firm put together to get the Boston House on the
National Register of Historic Places in 1985, preserving the
distinctive house for future generations.
“I had a long tenure there, and I look at the Boston House
as being a magnificent piece of architecture that was part of
my success,” he says. “I want to make sure that the next generation
knows what a treasure we have and to know the story
of the house.”
No doubt people will be looking up at the attic windows
of the Boston House for many more moonlit nights to come,
hoping to see its ghost.