Sidebar: Are Morgan Hill restaurant, Gilroy home haunted?

Couple claim to see, hear eerie things in Victorian

Larry and J. Chris Mickartz Victorian house near downtown Gilroy might be haunted. Photo courtesy Kelly Barbazette

By Kelly Barbazette

The South Valley has plenty of ghostly folklore passed down through generations. During Halloween, it’s fun to tell tales of specters from beyond.

Good spirits seem to be afoot at a home near Gilroy’s downtown. J. Chris and Larry Mickartz love their Queen Ann Victorian farmhouse, originally built in 1885. They’ve welcomed guests from 2006 to 2013 when it was a bed and breakfast.

One morning while making breakfast for guests, Larry chatted with a couple visiting from San Francisco.

“Just out of the blue, she said, ‘You have very good spirits here,’” Larry recalled.

The casual comment confirmed what he and J. Chris had suspected. Shortly after Larry moved into the home in 1996, things mysteriously began breaking.

“All of a sudden, all kinds of funky little things started happening,” Larry said.

An interior pipe on the second story leaked causing the ceiling to have to be replaced. Electrical plugs stopped working. A toilet flushed by itself a few times.

And one night after falling asleep, Larry woke up and saw a dark silhouette in the doorway of their bedroom.

“Sure as can be, there was something there, like a shadow. It was very clear. My first thought was that’s just Jim,” Larry said.

Jim was J. Chris’ first husband who died in 1995. The couple would joke that Jim is back, J. Chris said.

“There’s never been a malicious or scary thing,” Larry said.

“He just kept messing with things,” J. Chris said, laughing.

After less than a year, the disturbances stopped.

“It was almost like he was making sure that Larry would take care of the house,” J. Chris said.

She said to this day she’ll get in her car and she’ll think of Jim for some reason and his favorite song will come on the radio.

“I get a kick out of it when it happens,” she said. “In my mind you choose to believe what you want to believe.”

Mysterious happenings have occurred at Yolked Restaurant in Morgan Hill, recalled Joleen Hensley, who has worked at the restaurant on and off for the past 17 years.

“Strange things would happen like a loaf of bread would fly off the shelf even though no one was around,” she said.

She recalls other inexplicable things like loose change appearing when customers weren’t in the restaurant.

Hensley said there hasn’t been as much activity lately. “Maybe because we’re busy so it’s not noticeable.”

She explained the restaurant used to be open all day and there would be quiet times in the late afternoon when eerie things would happen.