Johann Adam Lemp arrived in St. Louis in 1838 from Eschwege, Germany. Originally establishing a mercantile store, one of the most popular items he sold was vinegar and beer his brewed himself. It didn't take long for Lemp to realize the money making potential.
He established a brewery for both these products and started selling his beer out of a pub attached to the plant. It is believed that this is where Lemp introduced St. Louis to lager beer. This light golden beer was very different from the dark English Ales that had been popular. Lemp beer became a regional favorite quickly and by 1845 Lemp was solely producing beer. Lemp's Western Brewing Co. expanded and by the 1850's it was one of the staple beers of St. Louis.
Adam Lemp died on August 25, 1862 leaving the company to his son William. William immediately began a major expansion of the brewery and purchased the five-block area around his father's brewing caves. Lemp beer and the Lemp brewery quickly gained national attention, as Lemp was the first brewery to establish coast-to-coast distribution of beer and even marketed it overseas. In 1892 the brewery was incorporated as the William J. Lemp Brewing Co.
Lemp beer was one of the great financial success stories in America and William Lemp Sr. began teaching the business to his favorite son, Fredrick. Sadly, the long workdays and heavy stress were too much for Fredrick, and he literally worked himself to death. In 1901 at the age of 28 he died from heart failure.
By 1870 Lemp was the largest brewery in St. Louis and remained so until Prohibition and the plant closed completely in 1919.
THE MANSION ITSELF
William J. Lemp, Sr.'s father in law, Jacob Feickert built the mansion in 1868, but even at that time it was certain that Lemp money was used in the construction. In 1876 Lemp bought the home outright from Feickert to use as his residence and as an auxiliary brewery office. From that point he spent money lavishly increasing the home into a thirty-three room Victorian showplace.
Included in his additions were three room sized walk-in vaults, each measuring 13 feet high, 15 feet wide, and 25 feet deep and an underground tunnel was run between the house and the brewery.
In the natural underground caves, the Lemps built an auditorium, a ballroom, and a swimming pool. All of which could be reached from another tunnel from the basement of the house. This tunnel is now sealed and the spiral staircase entrance has been cut away to prevent trespassing.
In 1911 William J. Lemp Jr. transformed the mansion into the new offices of the brewing company. Quite a few changes were made and the front part of the house was altered into private offices, lobbies, and rooms for clerks. Following Prohibition, the family and the mansion suffered a decline.
After the death of William Jr., his brother Charles remodeled the mansion back into a home and lived there alone with only two servants. Following his death in 1949, the mansion left the Lemp family and was used as a boarding house. Time was not kind to the neighborhood, and the mansion started to deteriorate as its surroundings did.
In the mid 1960's a significant section of the mansion grounds and one of the two carriage houses were lost to the construction of the Ozark Expressway, more commonly called Interstate 55.
Dick Pointer and his family rescued the mansion in 1975. It is now a popular bed and breakfast inn with four suites, each named after and previously belonging to a specific Lemp family member.
SUICIDES
Suicides were so common amongst German-Americans in St. Louis that the police department coined a phrase to describe it. They called it the Dutch Act. Four members of the Lemp family took their own lives.
William Lemp, Sr. Following the death of his 28-year-old son Frederick in 1901, and the death of his close friend and fellow brewer Frederick Pabst on January 1, 1904, the people who knew William Sr. described him as a changed man. Defeated and nervous, Lemp still showed up for work at the brewery but he seemed indifferent to its operations. On February 13, 1904, Lemp got up, ate breakfast, and mentioned he was not feeling well. After he finished his meal, he returned to his bedroom and around 9:30 a.m. he shot himself in the head with a .38 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver. He was 67 years old.
Elsa Lemp-Wright Daughter of William Lemp, Sr., Elsa had just reconciled with her husband after a rocky start when she took her own life in her home in 1920. She was 36 years old. Her brothers William Jr. and Edwin rushed to the house when they learned of the shooting. William's only comment was, That's the Lemp family for you.
William Lemp, Jr. While head of the Lemp brewery, William Jr. had allowed the companies equipment to deteriorate and become outdated, and the Prohibition came along. Convinced that Prohibition was never going to end, he sold the company's Falstaff trademark to would-be beer maker Papa Joe Griesedieck for $25,000. In 1922 he sold the brewery in an auction to International Shoe Co. At $588,000, the pre-Prohibition $7 million company was worth about eight cents on the dollar. Gloomy and miserable, the 55-year-old Lemp shot himself in the heart with a .38 caliber revolver in his mansion office on December 29, 1922. Shortly after speaking to his wife on the phone, he unbuttoned his vest and fired the gun through his shirt.
Charles Lemp Charles had worked in the family brewery for only a short time in his youth before heading out to a successful career in banking and politics. Despite this, he remained a private and odd man. After he'd converted the mansion back into a home, he seemed to have developed an attachment to the house and refused to move out, even at the suggestion of his only surviving brother Edwin. Somewhere along the way he had developed a morbid fear of germs. On May 10, 1949 he was discovered dead in his bed and still holding the .38 caliber Army Colt revolver he had used. He was 77 years old. Not wanting to leave his beloved dog behind, Charles had first shot him, and then himself. It was also found that Charles had made detailed funeral arrangements for himself many years earlier. Out of all the Lemp suicides, Charles was the only one to leave a note behind. In the letter dated May 9, 1949 he wrote, In case I am found dead, blame it on no one but me.
FAMILY DRAMA
In the years prior to World War I, the Lemp brewery was shaken by a very public and very bitter battle between William Lemp, Jr. and his wife Lillian Handlan-Lemp, also known as the Lavender Lady. Lillian's nickname came from the fact that she commonly dressed in lavender and even had her carriage horses harnesses dyed to match.
Lillian and William were going through a very scandalous divorce that was followed by a vicious custody dispute. Opening in February 1909, the trial attracted crowds of spectators each day. Tales of violence, drunkenness, atheism, and cruelty filled the courtroom daily. As if nothing else was going on the world, all four St. Louis newspapers devoted extensive front-page coverage for the duration of the trial. For the divorce, Lillian stated that William drank to excess and had been keeping company with other women. William argued that his wife had been seen drinking and smoking in public. Lillian received her divorce based mainly on the testimony of a family servant who stated she had found the long hairs of different women in William's bathroom while Mrs. Lemp was out of town. Two years later a second trial was underway over the custody agreement of William J. Lemp III, the couple's only child. Lillian moved to deny her ex-husband access to their son. Her most moving citation was Lemp's cruelty to animals.
William J. Lemp III died of a heart attack in 1943. He was 42 years old.
Following the deaths of all of his family members, Edwin Lemp was truly alone. Never speaking publicly about his family or their tragic ends, he seemed obsessed with keeping someone with him at all times. In 1970 he died of natural causes at the age of 90, ending the Lemp family line.
RUMORS
For a while it was believed that the Lemp Mansion had its own zoo in some of the carriage house buildings. Neighbors of the mansion frequently heard animal-like sounds at night, especially during full moons, and started the rumor. The unfortunate truth is that the sounds were not from any animal, but from a relative in the care of the Lemp family who suffered from schizophrenia.
HAUNTINGS
In 1980, Life Magazine listed the Lemp Mansion was one of the ten most haunted places in America, and rightfully so!
Stories of the mansion being haunted go back to when the mansion was a boarding house. Residents would often complain about knocking sounds and phantom footsteps. As these stories grew, it became more difficult to find tenants to fill the rooms.
In the late 1970's as the Pointer family worked to restore the house, workers reported strange things happening within the residence. Reports ran from a simple feeling of being watched to vanishing tools and strange sounds. Several workers walked off the job site never to return.
A few years back a part time tour guide heard horses neighing and moving about a few feet outside the north side of the building just below where William J. Lemp, Sr. had kept his office. Upon inspection from the window, the guide was distraught to discover that there were no horses anywhere to be seen. Coincidentally, when the parking lot on the north side was expanded to be closer to the Lemp Restaurant, it was revealed that the area the ghostly horse sounds originated from had once been used as a tethering lot for horses.
In the restaurant section of the mansion, glasses have been seen to lift off the bar and fly through the air. Many sounds have been reported, and several visitors and employees have seen actual apparitions appear and vanish before their eyes. Door will lock and unlock unexplainably, lights will flicker on and off, and the piano in the bar plays on its own. Some visitors claim to have seen the apparition of the Lavender Lady as well.
All these unexplained events, sightings, and sounds add more than charm to the place. Paul Pointer, current co-owner reports that they have had some guest unable to spend the entire night. Pointer himself has seen his share of strange things. One night his sister asked him to shut a drawer in the downstairs dining room, as he turned to do so, the drawer slid shut by itself.
In the book, Lemp: The Haunting History by Stephen P. Walker, he recounts the story of Claude Breckwoldt, a decorative painter of German descent, who walked off a ceiling restoration project. Breckwoldt said he felt he was being watched all the time and thought he heard someone calling his name. In the book he states, It was weird. I just felt I had to get out right then.
