Sauer Castle

Nearly every famous ghost story about Sauer Castle is debunked: the Civil War suicide legend predates construction by six years, and the supposed 1921 suicide of Maria Sauer actually happened at her daughter's house in 1919 from natural causes. The real tragedies (infant burial in the garden, a train crash death, a toddler drowning, a 73-year-old's suicide from declining health) are grimmer and quieter than the myths.

Most of the ghost stories about Sauer Castle are lies, and the truth is more interesting than any of them.

The standard version goes like this: a Civil War widow hanged herself in the tower after receiving news of her husband's death. There's a problem. The Civil War ended in 1865. Construction on the castle didn't start until 1871. The architect was Asa Beebe Cross, and the client was Anton Sauer, a German immigrant who'd lived in Austria and New York before settling in Kansas City. He didn't fight in any war. He had tuberculosis.

Anton married his first wife Francesca in Vienna. She died in 1868. He moved to Kansas City for his health and married Maria Einhellig Messerschmidt, a German widow, in 1869. Their blended family totaled twelve children. He built the 12-room Italianate villa at 935 Shawnee Road between 1871 and 1873 for about $20,000. It had walnut doors, carved stone lintels, marble mantels from Italy, Vermont, and Kentucky, a four-story tower, a greenhouse, a wine cellar, and a vineyard. Anton died of tuberculosis in the second-floor master bedroom on August 16, 1879.

The family's real tragedies need no embellishment. An infant daughter, Helen, died at 14 months and was temporarily buried in the garden before being moved to a cemetery. Son Emil died in his early twenties, likely from tuberculosis. Son Julius died in 1897 at 47 in a high-speed train crash. Granddaughter Cecelia Perkins drowned in the swimming pool as a toddler. And yes, there was a suicide in the house, but not a dramatic one: John S. Perkins, who married one of Anton's granddaughters, shot himself in 1930 at age 73 because of declining health.

Another persistent legend claims Maria Sauer killed herself in 1921. She actually died in 1919, at age 79, from a heart attack complicated by a broken hip, at her daughter's house in Missouri. Not in the castle.

Paranormal investigator Becky Ray, after conducting a thorough examination of the property for Paranormal Activity Investigators, called it "a beautiful empty house that seems to beg for ghost stories to be attached to it." Current owner Carl Lopp, a Sauer descendant, has said flatly: "There are no ghosts and no evil spirits inhabiting the Castle."

That said, residents in 1987 reported noises from the attic and fireplace covers shaking on their own. People driving past have described strange lights in the tower and surrounding land. Voices, both laughing and crying, have been heard from the road. A woman's figure has been spotted on the widow's walk, and a young boy has been seen inside the house.

The castle was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on August 2, 1977. It sold in 2023 for restoration using period-appropriate materials. Only about 10 of the original 63 acres remain. The house that inspired decades of invented horror stories is finally getting repaired rather than mythologized.