The Legend of Pepperidge Hall- a Sunday Lesson on Greed and Death

The Legend of Pepperidge Hall
First Draft
Ghost Stories
By Richard Beattie

Ghost stories are often the first place where history is enmeshed and confused with stories that were hatched to scare kids on a cold fall evening. My brothers are experts on doing that. And that is why I think it is important to understand that tradition of the annual ghost story that has been told in my boyhood backyard must be thrown in the fire and refined with a healthy dose of truth.

The south shore of Long Island is often called Gold Coast South. On the Connetquot River and Great South Bay alone the mansions of Vanderbilt, Bourne, and Cutting still grace the waterside and are extremely impressive structures.

The story (or stories) surrounds the property where I grew up. The history of the Pepperidge Hall neighborhood is confusing. Its owner was Christopher Rhinelander Robert II, and the entire estate was designed by noted architect H. Edwards Ficken. The Robert lineage is reported to be traced back to William the Conqueror. The family money came from real estate and the sugar trade in the West Indies. Christopher Robert inherited lots of it and lived a privileged life. Robert was a widower by the time he planned his 1000 acre estate in Oakdale. He had remarried a well to do widow with three children, her name was Julia Morgan. Robert had Ficken design a country-lodge which the family lived in from 1882. A fire destroyed that home and it was then that Robert commissioned Ficken to design and build the elaborate French style mansion for Julia. The plans included stables, a carriage house, and a glass conservatory. While the mansion was still under construction Robert made a puzzling real estate trade with developer W.K. Ashton. The trade was for Wall Street property in Manhattan in exchange for the 1000 acre estate in Oakdale.

This is where history and ghost story part ways. The story is told at our campfires that Robert was found murdered in the mansion. More histrionics than history! The hasty trade that Christopher Robert made is speculated to be due to marital problems, and that Julia Robert despised the mansion and everything it represented. Financial and marital problems plagued the Robert's and followed them everywhere they went. In 1897 the couple planned to sail to Europe. While their luggage was still on the dock Christopher impulsively changed his mind and returned to their apartment in Manhattan.

On January 2, 1898 a gunshot was heard by Julia. She called for her maid, and together they discovered the body of Christopher. A NYC coroner ruled the death a suicide, however Fredrick Robert, Christopher's brother engaged attorneys to contest the ruling, suspecting that Julia had murdered his brother. Julia Robert moved to France shortly after Robert's death which raised suspicion of the circumstances surrounding the death of Christopher Robert.

The home that my brothers and sister grew up in is sometimes known as the Pepperidge Hall barn. Chris Kretz of Dowling College created a podcast of the history of the area and photos of the buildings show that what became our home were the sheds and outbuildings of the barn adjacent to the dairy barn. Three silent movies were filmed on our land including "My Lady's Slipper" (1915), "To Hell with the Kaiser" (1918), and the 1920 release of "Dead Men Tell No Tales."

Ghost stories continue but there is an ironic parable that is underlying in the true story. Christopher Robert privileged and favorite son builds a great mansion as a legacy and for his wife. Robert never enjoys the property or the mansion; in fact she despises the home and everything it stands for. In despair Robert trades his prize for real estate in the city while confusion looms over the estate and Robert dies of a gunshot wound in his apartment. No one ever lives in the house for very long and in 1940 the mansion is deemed "unlivable," and the once great structure is razed.

We use to play on the foundation of Pepperidge Hall, the rubble of brick identical to the brick of our house. Up and down the foundation, stairways and a courtyard and pool overrun with weeds and underbrush. While we sit around the campfire this year telling ghost stories I think it is important to remember that what still stands today are the structures built to support the estate. The barns, out buildings, the dairy, the manager's home, and the ice house are structures that remain. Some have been ravaged by fire and rebuilt. The windmill was infested with rats and destroyed in the 1980's. Look around at what is left and what remains. And then remember what the psalmist says:

"For he knows how we were formed, he remembers that we are dust. As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and he is gone, and its place remembers it no more." Psalm 103: 14-16

Thanks to Chris Kretz from Dowling College, also Lavern A. Wittlock, author of "The Robert Castle at Oakdale, OakdaleNY.com, "The story of Pepperidge Hall-Mp3 Webcast, and recollections from Beattie Family members.