Tag Archives: Fort Lauderdale

The Haunting Of The Stranahan House — Fort Lauderdale, Fl

October 11, 2025 MJ Cooper

Chapter One: The House of Stranahan

Once upon a time, pall in the heart of Fort Lauderdale, sat the grand, enigmatic manor known as the Stranahan House. This solemn soul of architecture was the sanctuary of the city’s founding father, Frank Stranahan and his genteel wife, Ivy. The house reeked of history and hinted tales of love, ambition, aspiration, and grim tragedy.

Although it has weathered more than a century, the house still stands as firm and as eerie as ever, the damp southern air lends it an undying aura of antiquity and mystery. But the Stranahan House was reputedly more than just an artifact of the Golden Era. It was said to be a timeless haven for the spirits of Frank and Ivy Stranahan, who purportedly never quite left their beloved abode.

Chapter Two: The Unseen Residents

He was the city’s pioneering force, a maverick in his own right and she was the tender soul that healed and harbored. Together, they had been the city’s royal couple, and their story as captivating as their characters. The spine-chilling saga began with Frank’s unfortunate demise.

Stricken by the deathly blows of financial ruin and depression, Frank succumbed to despair and took his life in the rippling Manhattan River in 1929, hoping for a serene respite in its belly. Rumor has it, that the troubled spirit of Frank, unable to find peace, lingered, etching a sorrowful tale into the fabric of the Stranahan House.

His beloved Ivy, the epitome of grace and resilience, stood by his side even then. It’s whispered that Ivy, though relinquishing her life decades later in the lap of peaceful slumber, opted to linger behind with her husband.

Chapter Three: Echoes from the Beyond

Those who dare to venture into the eerie grandeur of the Stranahan House often recount unsettling tales. Some say they’ve spotted the spectral couple traipsing through the manor. Sometimes they’re sighted side-by-side on the veranda, peering out over their river with cold, longing eyes. At other times, they are seen wandering through the house, their ghostly forms wavering with each candle flicker.

And then there are the objects that seem to develop a life of their own. Artifacts from another era – a colonial hat, a pair of reading glasses, even Ivy’s cherished piano, have been known to shuffle around, disturbing the stillness of the house at odd hours.

Chapter Four: A Symphony of Spirits

For those with an acute ear, there lies an even more spectral sight. Often, in the eerie silence of the Stranahan House, the faint, resonant notes of Ivy’s piano descend; a musical séance from across the divide. A spectral symphony that reverberates through the hallowed halls, breaking the silence, and chilling the bones.

No human hand touches the ivories, yet the haunting melody persists, echoing the couple’s tale of sacrifice and eternal love, delving deep into the hearts of those who listen. This spectral soundtrack is the heartbeat of Stranahan House, a constant reminder of its permanent guests and the past they represent.

Chapter Five: The Unending Tale of Stranahan

The history still unfurls inside the Stranahan House. The tale of Frank and Ivy is more than just a ghost story, but a testament of undying love and resolve. Even in their afterlife, they continue to make their presence felt, to those who dare step into their timeless sanctuary. Every sighting, every eerie noise, every spectral tune is a part of the enduring legacy of Fort Lauderdale’s founding couple, a constant reminder of the city’s roots and its undying spirit.

In the heart of the bustling city, the Stranahan House, with its unseen residents and their unending tale, stands as an epitome of the supernatural, shrouded in a mix of chilling dread and profound admiration. It’s more than a haunted home. It’s a place where past and present intertwine, where spirits sing, and where the melody never fades. And in this way, the tale, though eerie, will never end, it will keep echoing through the halls.

In the hush of the night, you might still hear the faint echoes of Ivy’s piano, weaving their melancholic melody into the tapestry of Stranahan House, a bittersweet symphony from the beyond.

Florida

The Haunting Of The Stranahan House — Fort Lauderdale, Fl

May 19, 2025 MJ Cooper

Prologue – The House on the River

A newcomer to Fort Lauderdale might amble down Las Olas Boulevard, awed by the skyscrapers and tony shops, oblivious to the shadow sitting at the river’s edge. It’s a house, an antique Victorian structure with sweeping eaves and wrap-around porches: the Stranahan House, Fort Lauderdale’s oldest surviving structure. Its intricately carved woodwork and sophisticated architectural design speak of a time long past: the dawn of the 1900s.

Yet for all of its outward genteel charm, there’s a darker side to this historical wonder, a side that appeals to the darker rarefactions of Fort Lauderdale’s lore. This home, the exceptional domicile of Frank and Ivy Stranahan, the founding family of the city, has been the stage for strange phenomenon, recounted through a storied legacy of tales and rumors which turn the historical into the eerie.

Act One – Gentleman’s Specter

Reports of strange occurrences are frequent, primarily linked to Mr. Stranahan. Visitors commonly recount an invisible power that controls the ancient elevator, once a water pulley system designed by the adventuring owner himself, raising and lowering it at will. It has been seen operating all on its own, eerily moving between the floors with no discernible human intervention.

Shivers creep up one’s spine when the lights flicker, when inexplicable cold spots manifest. Glimmers of spectral light are captured on camera reflecting oddly in the mirrors or through the vintage glass windows. Mysterious orbs, seemingly glowing with their own internal light, often appear in photographs and video evidence.

“Ball lightning,” some skeptics mutter, “Visual aberrations caused by low light and digital noise.” Yet in the hush of a late evening, the skeptics too feel terror’s icy tendrils reaching out, the pulsing beat of their heart hammering a primal warning in their ears.

Act Two – The Floral Presence

Then there’s Ivy. The beloved wife of Frank, a lady known for her passion for gardening, her love for the Florida flora. As though the profound attachment extends beyond death, attendees often detect an otherworldly scent that pervades the air, a sweet fragrance of roses, Ivy’s favorite flower.

Her phantom fragrance is unpredictable, manifesting in a random pattern, as if a ghostly presence were walking in the rooms bearing an ethereal bouquet. No matter how many times the floors are cleaned and disinfected, the bittersweet perfume often lingers, a silent testament to a presence unseen but irrefutably felt.

Act Three – Paranormal Verification

Psychics, paranormal investigators, and thrill-seekers have all tread in the Stranahan House, each doubting and curious mind seeking an experience that transcends the world we know. Experts with their complicated tourbillion of ghost-hunting gadgets- EMF meters, infrared cameras, and ‘spirit boxes- demonstrate a startlingly unanimous conclusion: the Stranahan House is a beacon of paranormal activity.

As though dwelled by the metaphysical, the House has a spectral energy signature that zests their electromagnetic resonators, shimmering in hues not seen or felt in less haunted places. The magnetic pulls fluctuate erratically, almost pulse-like with an odd rhythm that seems to mimic that of a human heart.

Epilogue – The Haunting Continues

It has been a century and two decades since the Stranahan House first perched itself on the banks of the New River. It has seen the burgeoning transformation of Fort Lauderdale from a frontier trading post to a cosmopolitan metropolis. Yet as it sits, brooding in the shadows at the edge of Las Olas Boulevard, it remains silent- withholding secrets of its long-standing residents who refuse to part.

Urban legends, or a simple truth shrouded in specters? The enigma of the Stranahan House continues to allure the living to probe beyond the curtains of what we perceive as reality, to inspect the unseen and the unearthly, in this haunted haven of Fort Lauderdale.

The Stranahan House endures- history and haunted, alive and spectral, in an eerie coalescence of the living and the long departed.

Florida

The Wiccan and the Ghosts of Haunted Fort Lauderdale

May 29, 2009 MJ Cooper

“I am a Wiccan and I believe in the after life,” says Scarlet Aslan, one of the new guides at Ghosts, Mysteries and Legends of Old Fort Lauderdale. “And no, Aslan, is not a name I adopted from the Chronicles of Narnia, by C. S. Lewis. It is the name I was born with.” And it works for her – part mystery and part magic . This odd character trait gives her an advantage other ghost tour guides do not have.

“I believe in the afterlife,” she says, “and that is a part of my daily life. The spirits are always with me. As they are with all of us.”

She adds, “Ghosts have felt the need to reveal themselves to me since I was four years old. My first visitation was a great aunt. I didn’t realize she was a ghost until I told my mom about the lady in my room. My mom gathered up the old photo albums and asked me to show her who was in my room. The lady I selected was my great aunt who had passed three days before I was born.”

The Wiccan and the Ghost Tour. How can you go wrong? A guide from which one can get a proper introduction to the world of spirit, an integral part of her way of life. Not your usual ghost tour guide.

Just after the sun sets, she awaits members of the tour on the NE corner of Las Olas and Andrews in downtown Fort Lauderdale. She is easily spotted. She says, “I wear the usual attire for a female ghost tour guide: black dress, cape, top hat and I carry a lantern.” But there is more. Every night she carries several aides to connect her tour with the nether world. These include semi-precious stones, crystals and incense.

Her personal tour signature is burning incense. This, she says, arouses the curiosity of the citizens of the the “other side.” She states that the spirits recognize her incense and when they smell it, guests always get more orbs in their photos.

To help search down the ghosts, Aslan uses the ancient technique of hunting vibrations of the spirit world using copper divining rods. She also uses the more modern laser thermometer to pick up temperature changes. “There are a couple of places where there are almost always dramatic temperature reductions of 30 and 40 degrees.” At one of the places, she said, a young boy saw a ghost pass from one house to another. But he was not fast enough with his camera to get a photo.

The tour takes about an hour and a half. She gives a little bit of history on the site guests are viewing and then tell the stories of the mysteries and legends that are attached to that site. “I can usually feel the energy presence of ‘the others,’ so a lot of times when we are all walking I will say take pictures! I also try to bring my camera as well. So if I am taking pictures …. you should be taking pictures!”

Aslan finalizes with, “Come with an open mind and enjoy the history and the ghosts of Fort Lauderdale that make it interesting!”

Get more information at http://www.fortlauderdaleghosttours.com/ and at MySpace, myspace.com/fortlauderdaleghosthunt where you can see a video of excerpts of the tour.

Olga Marie Pathinas-Brovanovitch, born in Moscow, U.S.S.R. in 1954 to two members of the Communist Party, was trained in espionage in a training town in the Urals, where she learned Arabic, French, Polish and English with natural accents. She has written articles, using nom de plumes, on Chinese international relations, the central banks and how capitalism does not take care of itself.