Vineyard House

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The Vineyard House is rumored to be haunted by its original owners, Robert and Louisa Chalmers. So the famous story goes, Robert Chalmers began to display signs of mental illness, so Louisa chained him up in the basement where he starved to death. Apparitions, strange sounds, screams and clanging have been heard inside.

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Geographic Information

Address:
530 Cold Springs Road
Coloma, CA
United States

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GPS:
38.794015, -120.89003400000001
County:
El Dorado County, California
Nearest Towns:
Coloma, CA (0.4 mi.)
Cold Springs, CA (3.8 mi.)
Placerville, CA (6.6 mi.)
Diamond Springs, CA (8.0 mi.)
Georgetown, CA (8.3 mi.)
Deer Park, CA (8.5 mi.)
Auburn Lake Trails, CA (9.0 mi.)
Shingle Springs, CA (9.1 mi.)
Cameron Park, CA (10.1 mi.)
Camino, CA (12.2 mi.)

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Comments (10)

  1. I have seen one of the ghost here. But not the one chained in the up. I saw the little girl walking down the stairs or at the top of the stairs. also it was common to have your glass of water move on your table while sitting your table. This all happened back in the mid late 80s. as now this is a private residence.

  2. I remember visiting the Vineyard House in 1989 when it was still open as a restaurant and bar. The original jail was amazing. You could feel the presence of the spirits who occupied the cemetery. Many were families and children who were so young.

  3. I used to live in nearby Auburn, I stopped there with friends to eat when we were out browsing around in 1988. I’m pretty sensitive, as have had experiences previously. I began to feel just horrible! Was feeling depressed and sad. I felt trapped. I was perfectly fine before and after, but I could not wait to get out of that place!

  4. My husband and I went there in march of 2018. It is a private residence and not allowed to go on property. There is a small theater across from the house that also is supposedly haunted. There was a man working out side of it and told us that the man who now lives in the vineyard house is grumpy and hates people asking about the house. The man also said that lots of terrible things have happened in the house and its definitely haunted although the resident living in it claims it isn’t. We also went to the haunted cemetery across the street. Louisa, Robert, and all her kids are buried in that cemetery and you can see a clear view of the vineyard house if your standing in there plot. pretty cool. Although we didn’t see any spirits or feel any spirits while at those locations, I definitely believe if we were actually able to go into the house or theater we would have seen something. Very eerie creepy feel. Just looking at the vineyard house you get a very dark feeling.

  5. The house was built some time in the late 1800s, and was used over the years as a jail, an inn and restaurant, and, as its name implies, a winery. It was also at one time supposedly the site of where some executions took place. According to records, the original owners who built the house suffered one tragedy after another. Several of their young children died, their winery was eventually ruined because of a blight, and the husband contracted syphillis, which over time caused blindness and mental illness. Because he became violent from being mentally ill, his wife had him chained to a wall in the basement of the house, where he reportedly died. The entire family is buried directly across the street in a graveyard that overlooks the house. One intrigueing story was told by a couple who were staying in one of the upstairs bedrooms. It was late at night and all was quiet, when suddenly the couple was awakened by the sound of drunken men coming into the hallway downstairs. They were very loud and were singing and laughing and making a general raucous, so the husband upstairs stuck his head out the bedroom door to tell the loud men to quiet down. But upon doing so, he saw three men dressed in Victorian clothing ascending the stairs, and then they faded right before his eyes. Another story from a different couple who decided to stay at the inn was that something frightened them so badly that they packed up and left in the middle of the night. They reportedly refused to say what had happened that scared them so badly. The basement was used as a bar, and it was late at night after closing hours. The owner was cleaning up and wiping down he bar. He said that there was one last glass at the far end of the bar, and as he was cleaning, the glass suddenly began to shake, and then it slid all the way across until it finally stopped right in front of him. He admitted that he had no rational explanation for what he`d seen. It is believed that the things that go on in the bar are the original owner who died down there while chained to a wall. Other things that have been reported are sounds of rustling skirts, and there is apparently an area near the kitchen that is constantly cold. A woman having dinner in the restaurant claimed that she was approached by a young child who asked her to mash his peas and carrots for him. Another scary incident occurred in the restaurant when a large chandelier suddenly came crashing down, barely missing some of the guests. It used to be that when the restaurant and inn were still in operation, you could pick up a pamphlet that gave information about the haunting. It was a famous place because it had been there since the Gold Rush, and there were pictures of famous people, such as John Wayne and Dudley Moore, hanging on the walls. The hauntings were so well known that the house was featured on That`s Incredible! and Ripley`s Believe It Or Not. Sadly, the house has been closed to the public for quite a few years

  6. My son and I went to cemetery across the street. It really gave me creepy vibes. The cemetery just down the road across from Marshall’s cabin and historic church didn’t give us the same creepy feeling. I was standing at Louisa’s grave and looking at the house wishing we could tour it. We had no idea who Louisa was at the time. There is a little theater that you can see from cemetery and Vineyard house. We drove over to the Theater just to see if by chance it was open and we could tour it. (it wasn’t) As we were standing outside the theater I saw a full body of a woman for about three seconds. Assume she was around 40 years old. When I could see her I was facing the front of theater and she was standing in line with Vineyard house. She was looking north with one hand on her brow like she was straining to see, like she was blocking the sun. She was see through. Its hard to describe but she was black and white like an old photo with no color. She had hair up in a bun on top of her head. She was wearing late 1800’s early 1900’s white top and black blouse type pant suit thing. I didn’t get the best look at the blouse type thing because it was so fast. She didn’t look like any of the so called historic photos of the woman that lived at Vineyard house. I say so called because I am skeptical any of the pictures of the place I’ve found are even legit. So, I would say, even though I haven’t even been to Vineyard house, yes, I vote its haunted.

  7. Donastacia Bergeron  |  

    My husband was the chef, back in 1993-1996, the ownners were Les & Christine and they lived there. There were many stories including that Louisa liked an angel to top the Xmas tree and when the owners placed a glass star on top they would find it on the floor across the room in tbe morning. After many tries and staking out tbe tree overnight… only to find the star unbroken the topped it with an angel and it never moved.

    One time I went with a friend across to pioneer graveyard. I wanted to find the two little boys that died that were Louisa’s children. It grew dark & we decided to leave. I called out one more time for the boys and bumped into some object I guessed was a bush branch and asked my friend to use her flashlight so I would not trip over it. She exclaimed the area had no objects in the way. She asked where I felt the pressure and w told her above my knee on my right thigh. The flashlight was pointed towards the headstones on my right side…it was the markers for the boys. We think one of them who was apxx 5 when he died reached out to show me…
    I have a photo taken in the 1960s of the vineyard house & on the roof appears a woman dressed in late Victorian clothes walking.

    And Robert was not chained there is a jail cell in the basement bar area he died there

    Later it was used as a local jail when Louisa had to run the place as a boarding house.

    When the inn was sold to private owners our family did a final walk through to say goodbye. As my 4 year old son peeked through the keyhole on the third story for the attic door he said “mommy don’t open the door, the lady doesn’t want us to go in” …by the way, the attic stored empty coffins.

    • Hello Donastacia My name is Kohn Dwight. I worked at the house 89-93. Les was the head chef and newest owner when I left. Very exciting to see your post. Are you married by chance to Rusty? I was good friends with Rusty and we lost contact. He was a great person that I would love to reconnect with. If not, perhaps your husband is available for a quick correspondence
      Cheers. Kohn@geminips.com

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