Est. 1912 · East End Historic District — Silk Stocking Neighborhood · 15-Year Abandonment and Restoration · Police-Documented Occult Activity During Abandonment · Documented Paranormal Accounts since 1989
The building at 1101 23rd Street in Galveston's East End Historic District was constructed in 1912–1913 by George C. Smith, a telephone operator at the Galveston Daily News, and his wife Louise Dowling Smith. The three-story, 27-room boarding house stood on four lots at the corner of 23rd Street and Avenue K, in the Silk Stocking neighborhood where Galveston's prosperous middle class had built for decades. The building opened February 1, 1913, advertising in the local paper as 'strictly modern,' with hot and cold running water, private bathtubs, electric call bells, and ice water on every floor. The distinctive mansard roof gave the building its eventual name.
The first documented death on the property came in May 1925, when Louise Faye, the Smiths' daughter, died and her funeral was held at the house. Jessie Belle Cather Perry — widowed by the 1919 flu epidemic — acquired the building in 1926 and ran it as 'Perry's Place' for twenty-five years. Early residents were the clerks, bookkeepers, and tradespeople of a mid-century Gulf Coast port city.
The building's trajectory shifted when Norman Jones acquired it around 1996 and began renovating it as the Normandy Inn. Jones died at age 57 before the renovation was complete, having never fully opened the inn. Subsequent owners George Wood and Matthew Wiggins purchased the property in 2007, sold all its furnishings within weeks, and abandoned it. The building sat vacant and deteriorating for roughly fifteen years.
During the abandonment period, police investigating a reported foul odor entered the building and documented the interior conditions: animal carcasses, a painted pentagram with candles arranged around it, an altar, and Satanic symbols on the walls. These findings — interpreted by investigators as evidence of trespasser and squatter activity rather than anything supernatural — became central to the building's local mythology.
Michael and Ashley Cordray of the restoration company Save 1900 acquired the property, undertook a full restoration, and opened The Mansard House as a 12-room boutique hotel in March 2024. The building had not appeared on any paranormal television productions, a fact its ghost tour advocates cite as evidence that its reputation remains authentically local.
Sources
- https://historicgalvestonghosttours.com/what-grabbed-tylers-ear-the-normandy-inn-story/
- https://www.galvestonmonthly.com/homes/smith-perry.html
- https://austinghosttours.com/cursed-1101-23rd-street-galveston/
- https://themansardhouse.com/
Phantom soundsPhantom footstepsSense of presencePhysical contact (tour guide account)Apparitions
The haunting tradition at 1101 23rd Street has a datable starting point: Halloween 1989, when journalist Sonya Garza published accounts from resident Mrs. Stanford and her daughter Linda Groh in the Galveston Daily News. Stanford described nightly tapping from the floor above her apartment — 'almost like people tap dancing' — occurring every night around midnight throughout an entire summer. She and her daughter heard distant laughter and faint music playing when they were alone in the building, and they consistently felt an oppressive unease on the third floor. A medium brought to the building identified two spirits emotionally attached to Stanford. When the medium told her she must leave to send them away, Stanford reportedly declined: she was emotionally attached to them herself.
This account, published in a regional newspaper with named sources, represents the kind of documentation that separates the Mansard House's reputation from most of Galveston's ghost-tour mythology. Historian Kathleen Maca examined the more dramatic legends — a child leaping from a third-floor window during a housewarming party, an Egyptian mummy buried on the grounds — and found no contemporary newspaper records supporting either story. Maca traced the window legend to teenage dares and to retelling distance from the event rather than documented historical incident.
Tour guide Tyler, recognized by Texas Monthly as one of Galveston's best tour guides, told the account of his own experience at the building during its abandonment period: returning to retrieve a forgotten wallet from the boarded-up structure, something unseen grabbed his ear and yanked his head back while he was on the stairs. He stated it was the most frightened he had ever been, and that it converted him from skeptic to believer.
The building's accumulation of owner deaths — Louise Faye Smith in 1925, the 1999 and 2018 deaths of David and Vikki Goodbar, their daughter Courtney shortly after her mother, and Norman Jones at 57 — adds a factual layer to the 'cursed address' narrative that circulates on ghost tour routes. Austin Ghost Tours used the address as a named stop with the 'Cursed 1101 23rd Street' framing. The Mansard House operates today as a boutique hotel with full knowledge of and comfort with its haunted reputation.
Notable Entities
Two unnamed spirits (medium identification, 1989)Mrs. Stanford and Linda Groh (witnesses, 1989)
Where this legend is told
