Houston’s Spaghetti Warehouse – scary guy’s portrait
This photo shows part of a huge portrait that is displayed on the second floor of the haunted downtown restaurant, the Spaghetti Warehouse at 901 Commerce Street, Houston, Texas. A few of us have been trying to analyze the picture, and cannot figure out why this portrait is so troubling. As you can see, we’ve tweaked the contrast and colors, and nothing clearly presents itself to us.
Sure, we can see the ‘bleeding eyes’ effect, but… we think there may be more than that.
If you can see anything especially odd in this photo, or explain why it’s giving some of our researchers nightmares, please comment, below.
The ghosts at the Spaghetti Warehouse are pleasant and playful; it’s not a scary place at all. However, this portrait is very odd, and we’d love to understand why it’s bothering us.
Thank you!
how the portrait really looks
 original photo, adjusted contrast |
 inverted colors |
 enhanced, reds |
 enhanced, blues |
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The warehouse is not a playful place. And you have it right that its not scary.. Its a lot more than that. Its sad, hes the founder and owner of The Spaghetti Warehouse.. No one goes to the 2nd floor because thats where he died. Supposedly he fell against the elevator shaft. But i still dont know, i’m still doing research and also planning a visit/ investigation there.
That picture there, is an ordinary picture of the founder, that died. They keep it up there to keep memories. And that blood you see. Is his own. His blood splattered upon the portrait when he fell. I look at “the bleeding eyes” as tears. Hes trapped up there on the 2nd floor and because it feels like its “haunted” because hes trying to reach out to someone to get him to the other side. Same with his wife.
Also on the 2nd floor is supposedly where he lived/ his room. But like i said, i still dont know for sure. Also on the inverted picture, it shows his mouth open and looks like hes crying. He’s alone, and he needs help. I know this sounds crazy but its true. I know more if you want to email me
-Jenna Wilhelm
I think….well i copied the pic ( sorry ) and enlarged it..then i studied it and i noticed…do you see how when u enlarge the photos you see in the right bottom side it looks like it has been burnt. thats something i saw..and in the red pix it looks like he is mad because when u look at the eyebrows they kind of go inwards and downwards at the same time. the A.C. photo (adjusted contrast) suprised me a bit because in the top left corner you see a pattern type thing, like the kind you would find on an old mirror. and i noticed that in the inverted colors photo it does look like he is crying. i think he was pushed down the elevator shaft, and then the elevator was brought to the first floor, crushing him. I got that from what looked to be scars above his right eyebrow and near his chin/neck area. I also come to believe that his soul..has been damned into that picture forever since, as i said before, the mirror like pattern looks to be as if it is on a mirror. i believe he is a poor innocent soul wanting to get out of that picture. i beleive if somebody helps him find something he has lost, that he will pass over peacefully. im going there on saturday night. wish me luck
the investigation is done. lol. take a tour.
I looked at the portrait over and over, and I actually noticed something interesting, The blood stain was pretty sad if you ask me, but in the enhanced blue picture I see a staircase behind him, and I have been to the spaghetti warehouse plenty of times, and the mysterious staircase does not match up with the one at the spaghetti warehouse. The one in the picture looks like a hallway of stairs. like their leading to something. But the question is, What are they leading to? Is he trying to tell the mortal world something? Is he trying to tell us he needs help? Or is he just an angry soul? Honestly I do not know his past just yet, but I am sure he is not an angry soul. so lets listen to what he is trying to tell us. Or lets try to help him.
You may contact me at Nathaniel1988@live.com Or message me on myspace or facebook. search my name Nathaniel Trejo
WELL…..
I just found out, the man in the portrait is William Taft. A former president of the United States. The man did Not die in an elevator shaft in the spaghetti warehouse. Sorry to disappoint you ghost hunters. LEARN YOUR HISTORY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Nathaniel,
I agree that the portrait looks like President Taft. However, there’s also a reference to the portrait being a former owner of the building, and he just looked a lot like Taft. Perhaps you can visit the Spaghetti Warehouse and tell us if the portrait has a clear label to identify the subject.
The staff at the Spaghetti Warehouse told me the story of a former building owner — before the site was a restaurant — falling to his death down the elevator shaft. I think the building was a warehouse at the time.
Some ghost stories include a tale about that man, as well as his wife who found him when he didn’t return home at his usual time. As I recall, her ghost is supposed to haunt the ladies’ room on the first floor of the restaurant.
So, it’s best to conduct your own research and verify it before leaping to conclusions about ghost stories and others’ research.
Sincerely,
Fiona Broome
That is The former owner of a produce warehouse. He fell down an elevator shaft and when his wife was making dinner at their home and he didnt come home she was worried. So she went to his work and found people crowding around his lifeless body. She was very depressed so one year later she supposedly died of a broken heart. Thats sad if you ask me.
Thank you, Victoria!
I was trying to remember the story, and your account of it sounds exactly like what I was told at the restaurant.
Fiona Broome
cool photos want to come
HE HAS A BULLET HOLE IN HIS HEAD
I haven’t been there in a few years (maybe 3 years) but the last time I went on Valentine’s day we sat close to the corner. Facing away from the stairs, towards the northeast corner of the main dining room. I was looking at all the cool stained glass windows and old memorabilia and on the corner above us I saw bloodstains. Like they had seeped from the top floor and just dripped down into the first floor corner. I was kinda freaked out but someone told me they used to slaughter animals there (I doubt if that’s true) but the blood looked really old not fresh or anything. So then i assumed it was old cow’s blood or something, or a leak that had rusted the ceiling.
My sisters and I were brave enough to go upstairs alone and “feel” for ghosts. Apart from a waiter or dishwasher we were totally alone. It was cold up there! Upstairs has a very creepy feeling like you’re not really wanted there. Even just going up those grand stairs gave me a very heavy feeling like I was walking through molasses. Anyway we didn’t find anything but I did use the upstairs restroom and it was cold and scary, I got my butt outta there quick!
Though we didn’t find anything (and dang it, we didn’t bring a camera!) we still left feeling like for sure the Spaghetti Warehouse is creepy with a tragic past.
I can’t wait to go there again!
Plus the food was really good.
I have been to the spaghetti wareshouse several times and have studied this picture that hangs in the second floor very back corner right hand side. Let me start off by saying i have studied many places that “claim” to be haunted. I have been to and researched most famous places a few are, The Myrtles plantation Louisiana, Whaley house California, Amityville New York, and Ashton Villa Galveston. Since I live in Houston I decided to tackle this supposedly haunted restaurant. In order to get to the bottom of this you have to seperate fact from fiction. This means going back through history of what we actually know vs what we are told.
The spaghetti Warehouse was actually The Desel-Boettcher Warehouse and was built in the Main Street Market Square Historic District and completed in 1912. The building has served as a produce warehouse and storage for the Southern Pacific Railroad. The building was purchased in 1974 as a second location for the dallas based chain and renovated into the Original Spaghetti Warehouse. It was furnished with millions of dollars in antiques such as a huge hand-carved staircase from a castle in England, a full size Houston Avenue trolley car, grandfather clock from Europe and a beautiful chandelier from New York’s Penn Station.
This is WHAT we know. You can find most of this information through records and deeds. Also in places like The historical houston foundation. Which has records of the buildings in downtown houston dating back to the early 1900′s.
The ghost tales center on a young pharmacist who was dedicated to his job. He was busy with a pile of paper work with invoices overflowing upon his desk. Grabbing a stack of the files, he headed for the back elevator. Without looking, he stepped into the dark, open elevator shaft and fell several feet to his death. It is not him in fact that supposedly haunts the building but rather his wife who had died a year later due to a broken heart.
While researching the known address of 901 Commerce Street which houses the spaghetti warehouse there is no such history of it ever being a pharmacuetical company. Most of what supports this notion is the drug sign and drug related antiques that adorn the place. So you assume this is true. I have never found one shred of evidence that it existed in this building. Nor are there any old newspaper clippings or news accounts to anyone ever to have died prior to 1974 at that location. I would think something that tragic would have appeared somewhere given the time and the way in which it supposedly happened. If anyone can dispute this please feel free to email me with some sort of proof (heyguy10@hotmail.com)
So what we are left with are “stories” told from removed persons who weren’t even there when the event occured. Now like i said i have been to this place many times and i have yet to see the same waiter on any occasion i have been there. Do you really think a twenty something waiter is going to KNOW the history of this place that took place 40 years ago?? I say this because i have seen many post where bloggers have stated..”it is haunted the waiter told us so”. I have also asked the manager who has been there for over 15 years and she was more concerned with how many in our party we had than to be inconvenienced with historical questions but perked up when i asked about the hauntings as if it was indeed some marketing ploy at least that was the impression i got.
Ok so lets get down to this mysterious painting. To me there is no quesiton in my mind that it IS the president William Taft. Here is a picture identical to the one hanging at the spahgetti warehouse: (http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341bfae553ef01310fdc0032970c-pi) Unless he had a twin, there is no disputing this. This was taken around his election of 1912 which would have put this picture in circulation when this building was first open to the public and before when it was bought out in 1974. The elevator shaft was located in what is now the upstairs second floor bathroom. Since there are no walls surrounding this space it would be highly unlikely that a picture of this size could even hang there. Leaving a hole in the blood splattered theory. For all we know that could very well be sphagetti sauce. Also if this were to ever have happened it would be in very poor taste considereing the time period that they would allow it to continue to hang on the premises after such a tragedy has occured. I pity the unfortunate wife who had to look at her blood splattered portrait of her dearly departed. Just doens’t make sense.
Also what gives this portrait it’s creepiness effect that everyone here is talking about but can’t put their fingers on it, it’s simply that the eyes seem to follow you wherever you are in the room. It’s called the linear perspective effect. Painters have been using this effect for centuries. The fact that the picture is so big brings out this effect drastically. And if the lighting is just right it is indeed a creepy effect.
The fact that you are in a room filled with antigues and pictures and paintings of an era gone by help the feeling you get when you are in there especially alone. It removes you from the twenty first century and you are surrounded by things that seem foreign to you and a sad reminder that life is fleeting and things will change and go on…without you.
Hi Joey,
First, thanks for taking the time to post all of this.
Though hauntings seem to be a marketing tool for many businesses, I think the Spaghetti Warehouses seem to land at sites with existing ghost stories. That seems coincidental, from how the stories are told, but I could be wrong. (Ref: The holiday traditions at their Austin restaurant, described in my Austin book.)
I’ve heard the pharmacist story about the Houston location. The one conveyed to me by someone who’d been at the restaurant for many years (not a “twenty-something”) told it regarding the warehouse owner or manager. The support for the story was one or two of the photos above the staircase, which show the history of the building based on the signs on its exterior.
According to that story, the death was not widely reported due to the pending sale of the building or — in another version of the story — an innate superstitious nature of the workers, and a fear that they’d quit and be difficult to replace. It would take considerable research at Vital Records to determine the facts of the case.
The strongest ghost story is definitely the wife, and her appearances were reported most often around the ground floor ladies’ room. However, during one of our investigative visits, a lit sign on a ground floor wall was blinking on and off as if responding to the story and our questions, K-II style. (That seemed amusing, but we didn’t take it seriously.)
During another investigation, the power to the entire building went out, without explanation. However, that seems to be routine at some Texas investigations. (See my Austin book for more of the same.)
Since my mother majored in Portrait at Mass. College of Art, I’m familiar with the eye issue you’ve mentioned. In fact, it’s cleverly amplified with the portraits at Disney’s various “Haunted Mansion” attractions. However, I think the portrait is more eerie than that. Your explanations may be all there is to it… but they may not.
At this point, with the wealth of stories at the Houston Spaghetti Warehouse, I think it’s necessary to include two other possibilities:
1. The real stories of the restaurant’s ghosts are based in historical events that were suppressed or simply haven’t been adequately researched. Those kinds of problems will affect the accuracy of the tales.
2. We need to include the effects of the “observer,” to use quantum physics terms. In simplest possible terms: If enough people believe something, it manifests to a greater or lesser degree, matching their expectations. That’s powerfully suggested by the studies described in Conjuring Up Philip.
However, regardless of the accuracy of the stories and whether or not the Spaghetti Warehouse has ghosts, these stories should be shared as wonderful traditions and folklore. Unless a story causes continuing problems (or even harm) to people, I generally encourage people to share their stories here.
While I’m a stickler for historical accuracy at the sites I investigate in depth — such as The Myrtles Plantation where none of the children actually died, and we cannot document a slave named Chloe — I avoid debunking stories that may eventually lead to the true history of a haunted site. I look for what’s anomalous and what’s consistent in the stories, and that usually helps isolate accurate details that can help us find the ghosts’ documented histories.
Thanks again for taking the time to detail your findings and interpretations of the Spaghetti Warehouse’s strange, ghostly history.
Cheerfully,
Fiona