{"id":32119,"date":"2022-10-30T08:00:30","date_gmt":"2022-10-30T15:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/hi-lo\/?p=30000028645"},"modified":"2022-10-30T09:30:00","modified_gmt":"2022-10-30T16:30:00","slug":"haunted-long-beach-the-bembridge-house-checks-all-the-boxes-for-a-ghostly-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/news\/haunted-long-beach-the-bembridge-house-checks-all-the-boxes-for-a-ghostly-home","title":{"rendered":"Haunted Long Beach: The Bembridge House checks all the boxes for a ghostly home"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Haunted Long Beach: The historic Bembridge House\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/131jZGaXJEQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Today in Haunted Long Beach we\u2019re going to visit the historic<a href=\"https:\/\/www.lbheritage.org\/bembridge-house\/visit\/\"> Bembridge House<\/a> in Drake Park.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy?\u201d you\u2019re asking. \u201cIs it haunted?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s what we know:<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s got a solid resume as a haunted house. It was built in 1906, the same year as the making of the French short film \u201cThe House of Ghosts,\u201d considered to be one of the earliest cinematic depictions of a <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Haunted_house\">haunted house<\/a> premise.<\/p>\n<p>The Bembridge House was built in the Victorian style, which automatically makes it haunted.<\/p>\n<p>An article in Scientific American titled <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.scientificamerican.com\/anthropology-in-practice\/why-are-victorian-houses-haunted\/\">\u201cWhy Are Victorian Houses Haunted?\u201d<\/a> declared, \u201cWith their mansard roofs, gables and ornate pillars, these houses appear to loom and brood. They are the quintessential haunted house. It is in this type of home that Norman Bates lurks, for example, and where the weird but lovable Addams Family reside, and where <a href=\"https:\/\/poestories.com\/read\/houseofusher\">Roderick Usher <\/a>ultimately descends into madness. Strange things happen in these types of houses.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Such was the pervasiveness of the inherent scariness of Victorian homes that such authors as Edgar Allen Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne embraced the architectural\u00a0 trope and used it to set the stage for their haunted themes, the article noted.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Victorian house&#8217;s reputation was enough that its mere presence implied something terrible was lurking within.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Bembridge House is convincingly haunted enough in its appearance to have scored a role in the 2012 film <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=7MrVo0oEhYY\">\u201cThe Haunting of Whaley House,\u201d<\/a> in which it played the title role of the haunted San Diego mansion once inhabited by a family who suffered many tragedies including suicide and whose ghosts are said to still haunt the place. The Bembridge House was creepily convincing in its role as a haunted house.<\/p>\n<p>And, of course, the Bembridge House had its own tragedy that feeds eerily into the idea that it could indeed be haunted.<\/p>\n<p>The home\u2019s namesake, Dorothy Bembridge, lived in the 18-room house in Drake Park from the time her father bought it in 1918 following Stephen Green\u2019s death in the house caused by &#8220;a stroke of apoplexy&#8221; as a result of an argument with a neighbor, until her death at the age of 89.<\/p>\n<p>Dorothy was an accomplished pianist and music teacher, a founder of the Long Beach Historical Society\u00a0 and a devoted fan of Charles Rivers Drake, one of Long Beach\u2019s most notable pioneers and founder of the Pike, the Hotel Virginia and Virginia Country Club.<\/p>\n<p>A transient named Daniel Borunda, who sometimes stalked the Bembridge and had on occasion snuck into the house to steal items, was eventually convicted of burglarizing the home in 1990. He was released from prison in 1999 and on Nov. 4, just a few weeks later, Bembridge was found strangled in the backyard of her home. She was 89.<\/p>\n<p>Borunda was found guilty of the murder, which police said was motivated by revenge and burglary. He remains in prison today.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a matter of conjecture whether Bembridge\u2019s spirit still haunts the house that she loved so dearly\u2014your paranormal experts say that ghosts often stay close by place after dying in a traumatic manner, such as by suicide or murder. And they also say that ghosts frequently are hesitant to leave the places that they loved.<\/p>\n<p>Whether the house is haunted today by the ghost of Dorothy or, for that matter, Stephen Green, its builder, remains unclear. But it&#8217;s easier to make a case for it than it is to debunk it\u2014it\u2019s science! Victorian architecture, convincing acting role as a real haunted house, murder.<\/p>\n<p>What more do you need?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Bembridge House had its own tragedy that feeds eerily into the idea that it could indeed be haunted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":208,"featured_media":71558,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2002],"tags":[258],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[2792],"class_list":["post-32119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-haunted-long-beach","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/208"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32119"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=32119"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=32119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}