A historic new park begins another chapter in the bizarre saga of Capitola’s Rispin Mansion

If the Rispin Mansion has not already outlived every resident of Capitola — indeed, maybe even all of Santa Cruz County — that day is not far off.

Capitola’s compelling curiosity along the banks of Soquel Creek is now 103 years old. That’s not an age usually associated with mid-life makeovers, but improbably — many locals might say “finally!” — something is happening at the Rispin that will allow locals and visitors to experience the place in a way that has never been possible before … well, sort of.

The City of Capitola has plans for the long-abandoned property that will transform the area likely by the end of the year. What’s crucial to understand, though, is that the mansion itself, a four-story ruin rumored to be haunted or cursed, will remain closed up and inaccessible. It’s the grounds around the mansion that will be turned into a public park.

The Park at Rispin Mansion will develop the 5.7 acres of riparian land surrounding the mansion for public access, with an ambitious plan to build various landscaping amenities including the restoration of the mansion’s famous grand staircase, gardens, a fountain/reflecting pool, public art and a small amphitheater, as well as new fencing and lighting, all on the Wharf Road side of the property adjoining the bike trail and bridge over Soquel Creek connecting the Nob Hill Foods parking lot to Wharf Road. The total cost of the park project is $949,000. (Other amenities like a bocce ball court, new pavers and the restoration of a sundial will have to wait for a new round of funding.) 

The mansion itself will be little more than a decorative backdrop to the new park. After 10 years in planning and development, Capitola public works director Jessica Kahn said that her department plans to have the park open by the end of October. 

That’s, of course, Halloween season, which seems like an appropriate time of year to celebrate the Rispin. Officially designated a historic place, the mansion has been a source of fascination to generations of locals, attracting all kinds of lurid ghost stories, myths and folklore. Built in 1921 as a kind of model-home show palace by developer Henry Allen Rispin, the mansion was also for years the home of an order of nuns known for their vow of poverty and their habit of living barefoot. After the nuns moved out, the mansion was abandoned and left to molder for decades. It was purchased by the City of Capitola in 1985.

Over the years, Capitola’s city council has struggled to figure out exactly what to do with the property. Development plans for a boutique hotel have come and gone — other ideas included senior housing and a library. But those plans were always derailed by costs, conservation restrictions (the property’s eucalyptus trees have become a wintering spot for the monarch butterfly) or other factors. A fire in 2009 destroyed much of the inside of the mansion and created a more dire safety hazard than what was already there. At that point, many in Capitola began asking the obvious question: Why not just demolish the old thing? 

“Because the walls are so thick and made out of reinforced concrete,” said Capitola historian Frank Perry, “it would have cost a fortune [a reported $2 million] to demolish it. It would have also left a giant hole in the ground. It’s a four-story building and two of those stories are underground.”

Instead, the city chose a cheaper alternative, to give the old mansion a facelift so it wouldn’t look so decrepit, but even the bill for that came close to $650,000. The city called the process “entombing,” which included repairing the fire-damaged roof and flooring and closing up all openings to the building. 

Given that the mansion has a vampire-like quality to survive in the face of those who want to kill it, it’s little wonder the Rispin is considered cursed or even haunted. But there are other reasons.

The man who built the mansion lived a life of such dramatic highs and lows that it reads almost like a Shakespearean tragedy. Henry Rispin was a Canadian who married into a railroad fortune at the turn of the 20th century, then struck oil (literally) in Wyoming. That allowed him to buy outright what is now Capitola in 1919. Rispin invested a fortune into developing Capitola as a tourist draw and built the mansion that bears his name. His grandiose development plans included a golf course in Soquel that operated until World War II. But the Great Depression caught up with Rispin, and less than a decade after it was built, the man was broke and the mansion was purchased in foreclosure. He died penniless in 1947 and is said to be buried in an unmarked grave in Colma, south of San Francisco. If you were Henry Allen Rispin’s ghost, wouldn’t you be hanging around the mansion?

Then, there’s the nunnery story: For about 16 years, during and after World War II, the mansion was occupied by the Poor Clares, an order of cloistered Catholic nuns, until they moved out in 1956 to more comfortable housing in the Aptos hills. Yep, the mansion was too cold and spooky even for nuns taking a vow of poverty.

Another reason that the Rispin Mansion is considered cursed is that generations of kids made it so. The mansion was closed and boarded up throughout the 1960s and ’70s, but security around it was much more porous than it’s been in recent years. For many of those of a certain age who grew up in the Mid-County area, the Rispin Mansion represented a kind of rite of passage, to not only trespass in the ghostly old abandoned mansion, but to leave behind something to freak out the next kid coming up behind you. 

In the internet age, the Rispin Mansion has been the subject of several DIY “ghost-hunter” style videos, many from people sneaking inside to document the dank, graffiti-splayed interior of the mansion. Several stories of people dying inside and outside the mansion have proved to be durable over the years, though no evidence suggests that anyone has died under suspicious circumstances on the property. One guy online claimed Michael Jackson looked into buying the mansion once, because … well, I guess Jacko is as close as contemporary pop culture gets to Dracula. 

For locals with a sense of the legend of the Rispin Mansion, it will be interesting to see how the city’s potentially beautiful new park on the grounds affects (or doesn’t affect) the mansion’s reputation. 

Deborah Osterberg, who runs the Capitola Museum right next to city hall, said she’s excited about the possibilities of the new park. 

“I can see it as a place where I could do some programming,” she said, “especially right across from the [Capitola public] library, with the amphitheater. I like to dress up in costume, in 1920s style, so I can see that as a perfect thing to do there. So I’m excited about that.”

As for a potential opening party in the new park in late October, occasion-appropriate costume ideas are ripe for the picking, from a Roaring Twenties real estate magnate gone broke (picture someone wearing a barrel and smoking a big cigar), to barefoot nuns, to 1970s-era stoners, to goofy ghostbusters with video cameras. No matter what the park looks like or what kind of crowd it attracts, one thing is certain: The Rispin Mansion itself will still be standing, a brooding silent presence overlooking the party.

Yes, Capitola may be in for the most interesting Halloween it’s seen in decades.

Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here.