Freaks and Phantoms Cavort at the Holley Inn (1986)

Bush Holley House. Photo taken: October 2014.

by Jeffrey Bingham Mead

Greenwich Time, Greenwich, Connecticut
November 2, 1986. Page A15

History, a dull subject to some, when revealed to its fullest is colorful, stimulating and even humorous. This recent Halloween holiday brings back to this diligent writer-historian an incident he ran across which occurred in the annals of local history at the turn of the century in Cos Cob.

The occasion was a rather unique Halloween party at the Bush Holley House on Strickland Road. In those days it was the home of notable ladies and gentlemen who had stayed during the preceding summer season at this famous historical landmark.

For an autumn evening, the Holley Inn was transformed into a haven for freaks, spirits, demons and poltergeists.

With the arrival of each guest, he or she was given a pumpkin and knife with instructions to carve the pumpkin into the features of a face resembling one of the other celebrants. As one could imagine, with so many sculptors, artists and portrait painters present, the faces on the pumpkins surely were realistic and works of arts in themselves, as the Holley Inn was a favorite artist colony in those distant days.

In no time at all, the autumn sun dipped low in the western horizon, yielding to the hours of darkness. With the window shades down, the many fireplaces that dot the interior of the Holley Inn were kindled with inviting, blazing fires. The rooms were decorated with the carved grotesque jack-o'-lanterns sculpted by those in attendance, with illuminated faces flickering with ghoulish laughter as evening set in.

At 6:30, a gong reverberated throughout the halls. The time to dress for dinner in costume arrived, and the many guests clamored to the nearest dressing room available. The costume worn by each guest was kept in strictest confidence until the dinner hour. To say the least, the costumes worn that night bordered on the eccentric. The guest list that night read like a "who's who" of artists and Holley Inn patrons.

Mrs. Edward Holley came as a beautiful Circassian lady, with artist Elmer MacRae as a bearded lady and his wife as a "wild woman of Borneo." Miss A. Barlow and Miss Louise Cameron Walter came as Siamese twins, with Miss Mary Annabel Fanton as a serpent dancer; Miss Theodosia de Riemer Hawley as a Japanese "giantess"; Miss Katherine Metcalf Moody as a Bulgarian princess; Mr. H.F. Taylor as the "king of the Cannibal Islands"; Mr. George Gilman Hall as a Chinese warrior; Mrs. Kate Jordan Vermilye as a vampire; plus many others.

The infamous gong chimed once again at 7:30, alerting the trick-or-treaters to organize in the upper hall for parade which world itself down the south stair case and through the rooms and veranda below to the dining room. The procession was led by Mr. Holley, owner and proprietor of the Holley Inn, who carried a gramophone playing the brass band version of Ludwig von Beethoven's Turkish Patrol March.

Later the costumed guests played at games of 'Hide and Seek,'  'Blindman's Bluff,' and 'Happy is the Miller.' As the clock struck midnight the bewitching hour began. The celebrants descended into the cellar, where they bobbed for apples, consulted the magic mirror, and engaged in the mystical art of palm reading, and also forecasted fate and fortune through tarot cards. 

At long last the evening came to a close, as hideous, ghoulish ghost stories were told, sending many a chill up-and-down the spines of those present, who listened squeamishly in the eerie flickering lights of the Holley Inn cellar.

A bewitching weathervane off Field Point Road, Greenwich. Photo: August 2014.

Jeffrey B. Mead, who lives in Greenwich, is a direct descendent of one of the founding families of the town. He is a freelance writer and a member of the Greenwich Historical Society.