Calendar of Halloween events around Tampa Bay

Forget about the so-called haunted houses that pop up during Halloween season. There are plenty of places where the undead reside year-round, according to local folklore.

Join us, if you dare, on a tour of North Pinellas' ghostly sites.

Granted, there are skeptics who will accept nothing less than concrete evidence of the supernatural. All we offer are the legends that haunt these buildings.

It's no surprise that North Pinellas has a collection of spirits, said Dr. Paul F. Daniele of the Clearwater-based College of Metaphysical Studies. He declined to discuss specific locations, but said the whole county is inundated with spiritual energy possibly fueled, in part, by the large number of retirees who have moved to the area and inevitably passed away.

"Believe me when I say . . . we are just loaded with energy," Daniele said. "It's an energy vortex."

* * *

In 1905, a physician named Dr. Douglas operated a small hospital out of a Victorian house at 420 E Tarpon Ave. in Tarpon Springs. Psychics have told current owner Matthew Gullo, who turned the place into a hip music studio, that upstairs in room 1 (the number is still faintly visible on the wooden door) is where a teenage girl died while giving birth or having a miscarriage.

She may have died, but she never left, according to Gullo.

Her name was Elizabeth and she and at least two other ghosts, one that likes to hang out near an upstairs fireplace, and one that prefers an area near the attic, haunt the place, especially after 2:30 a.m., said Studio 420 staff members.

"Our house is free-spirited," said Gullo.

Almost every day something eerie happens in the house. Elizabeth has turned off a light, turned on a boom box and turned over an ashtray. At least twice a day the doorbell at the back of the house rings, and when an employee goes to answer it, no one is there. It's just Elizabeth, they say.

The spirits seem to like it upstairs.

"I ran into an apparition today (when) I was making CDs," Gullo said. "It was cold, my hair stood up. It was like walking into a wall or bumping into someone. I said, "Oh, I'm sorry.' "

A spirit once tapped audio engineer Larry Greenbaum on the shoulder.

He got out of there fast and almost quit his job.

"I'm not hanging out where dead people are," he said.

* * *

Decades after he fell out of the lighthouse and "got himself killed," the old lighthouse assistant still makes his presence known, says a regular visitor to the Anclote Key watchtower.

The man, who died in the early 1900s, stayed on at the lighthouse. At least, says lighthouse advocate Lary McSparren, "part of him did."

McSparren is something of an expert about the lighthouse, a 113-year-old tower, because of his work to get grant money for restoration. He is less of an expert about the roaming spirit, although he has heard stories.

The ghost is not the troublemaking sort, he said. "It's not a matter of causing problems," he said. Just the occasional, Casper-like appearance.

Alas, McSparren and others have secured no grant money to pay for ghost eradication. But nobody is anxious to get rid of the ghost, so maybe a little funding to keep the spirit happy?

"Unless it's for food, maybe," McSparren said. "But I don't know what ghosts eat."

* * *

At the corner of Curlew and Belcher roads in Palm Harbor, the Hartley House -- now home of the Palm Harbor Historical Museum -- hardly cuts an imposing presence. But Winona Jones, the museum director, says former owners reported more than just the normal settling creaks there.

Built around 1914, it once was the home of "Judge" Thomas William Hartley, a Methodist lay minister. He got the nickname because as a justice of the peace, he was the only legal entity in the then-sparsely populated area.

His daughter, Lucy, was the last Hartley to own the home. She sold it in the late 1960s. The new owners claimed some strange things went on there.

"They would hear noises, things of that sort," Jones said.

Though Jones has never witnessed such oddities, there was one occurence that struck her as peculiar.

The day after the March 1999 funeral for Clarine Hartley Polaski, the last surviving child of "Judge" Hartley, Jones arrived at the museum to find a mockingbird sitting on the back porch singing away.

All day, the bird flew back and forth between the porch and a grapefruit tree planted by "Judge" Hartley himself.

"Some of us kidded about it," Jones said. "It was as if it was there to deliver a message saying, "Things are fine now.' I've never seen anything like it over there."

* * *

The Woman's Club building in Oldsmar has been the subject of spooky tales spun by neighborhood children for years.

The dilapidated, shotgun-style building sits on concrete blocks on a dark, dead-end street near Oldsmar City Hall. In the 1920s, the building was the social hub for the city, but it since has gone into a state of disrepair.

The site has all the ingredients for creepy stories: a mostly abandoned, dilapidated building with an old screen door that bangs when it shuts and a large oak tree nearby with moss hanging from its limbs.

One day, several years ago, Peggy Neeley was in the building looking at old records when she heard children talking outside the house.

"Don't go in there because there are ghosts," they said, not knowing Neeley was inside.

Then, the group challenged one of the kids to walk up to the house. As the boy cautiously walked to the door, Neeley suddenly appeared.

"The boy went up, and about that time I opened the door and said, "What are you doing?' " Neeley said. "By the time I got to "What are . . .,' they were flying out of there like crazy. They figured a ghost had come to the door and would get them."

Neeley said she knows of no ghosts living in the building. But it sure makes for lively stories.

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