Sauer Castle

A striking German Gothic mansion built by Anton Phillip Sauer, who relocated from New York City via Vienna after his wife's death in 1868. The castle-like private residence with its prominent tower is one of the most recognizable landmarks in the Kansas City area.

Sauer Castle rises from a hilltop at 935 Shawnee Road, its Italianate tower and widow's walk visible for miles around, dominating the Kansas City skyline like a Gothic sentinel that has been watching over the Missouri River valley since 1871. Designed by the renowned architect Asa Beebe Cross and built between 1871 and 1873 for German immigrant Augustin Sauer, the castle is considered the finest example of nineteenth-century Italianate architecture in the state of Kansas. But its architectural beauty has been overshadowed by a haunted reputation that has grown for nearly a century, making it one of the most recognized -- and most feared -- private residences in the Midwest.

Augustin Sauer was a successful merchant who built the castle for his family, but the house would become associated with death almost from its completion. Four members of the Sauer family died within the home over the decades: Augustin himself, his daughter Helen, his son-in-law who died by suicide, and a great-granddaughter who drowned. While none of these deaths were violent in the dramatic sense that ghost stories typically require, the accumulation of grief within the walls seems to have generated a persistent supernatural atmosphere.

Ghost stories about the castle began circulating in the 1930s and have grown more elaborate with each passing decade. The most dramatic legend involves a woman who hanged herself from the tall observation tower, her body swinging in the wind above the widow's walk. Another tale describes a deranged husband who murdered his entire family inside the castle, buried them in the backyard, and then took his own life. Rumors of buried treasure, secret tunnels leading to the Missouri River, and hidden bodies have swirled around the property for generations. None of the murder stories have any basis in documented fact, but they have proven remarkably durable.

What has been documented by visitors and neighbors are ghostly figures seen roaming the property at night, visible through the castle's distinctive arched windows. Voices emanate from empty rooms, objects are said to move of their own accord, and strange smells that have no identifiable source drift through the building. Flying orbs of light have been photographed in and around the castle, and the grounds carry an atmosphere of unease that even skeptics acknowledge.

Not everyone is convinced. Paranormal investigator Becky Ray has noted that Sauer Castle may simply be "a beautiful empty house that seems to beg for ghost stories to be attached to it." The castle was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977 and placed among Kansas's Historic Landmarks in 1987. Under new ownership, restoration efforts are underway, and the question of whether renovating the castle will quiet its ghosts or awaken them remains to be answered.