In 2003 I received an e-mail from an intrepid urban explorer who in 1999 managed to break into Rose Red and, very fortunately for him, escape unscathed after a brief tour of the house. He and his three accomplices brought with them disposable cameras and he sent me scans of the resulting photos.

This group of four teenagers, whose names I can’t divulge for obvious reasons, entered the mansion by a side door just beyond the kitchen. Since kids know no fear, they did this in broad daylight (allowing them fairly clear outdoors photos, but indoors even the natural light in Rose Red was unreliable). They were able to take photographs, some of better quality than others, as they briefly toured the key rooms downstairs and took one quick trip to the Tower Folly.

Come 2000, 3 of the 4 had gone to college, scattered across the nation and no longer interested in the momentary thrill they got from exploring the infamous Rimbauer mansion. The fourth tucked the photos into a pocket in his backpack and forgot about them, giving them no protection from the pens, paper clips, and other items that were also there. End result is annoying scratches across all the scans he sent me. But even with the occasionally poor quality of the photos and the scratched surfaces, these are true gems. They show us Rose Red as she looked when Joyce & her party entered for their fateful exploration.

Rose Red was in 1999, and indeed until Joyce’s expedition, considered a “dead cell”. It would appear that the teenagers weren’t there long enough to whet the house’s appetite, or they didn’t possess any psychic talent that Rose Red found appealing. They all escaped unharmed, and as far as I know suffered no ill effects aftwards - no lingering curses, no weird dreams, none of the stuff you’d expect from a place so steeped in superstition.

The owner of the photographs sent me the scans after reading an interview I did with a Fortean magazine, one that used to consult Nick frequently on their various stories.

I’ve shown these photographs to Emery Waterman who confirmed their authenticity insofar as the appearance of Rose Red as he remembers it (and I doubt very much that he’ll ever forget it). It’s memories like Emery’s that allowed the setting for the miniseries to be so very accurate!

I must say that these photos stir all kinds of feelings in me. This is the environment in which Nick disappeared, and my only regret is that the teens didn’t follow the winding stairs up far enough to the Perspective Hallway to get a photograph there. The last place Nick was seen alive. But that’s very selfish of me, because if they had, they may not have escaped to tell the tale…?

4 Comments

1. this is so creepy i love it i would go inside i love the paranomal

   Comment by abel — May 3, 2009 @ 10:31 am

2. I LOVEE ROSE RED!!:x:x:x:x:x>:d< AND I LOVE THE PARANORMAL ..VERY MUCH!!!!!!!!!

   Comment by alina — July 26, 2009 @ 9:58 pm

3. i love that<3

   Comment by iulia — July 28, 2009 @ 11:51 am

4. this house contains the souls it consumed. one of those is the powerful freind of elen rimbaur who could command the plants themselves. what this means in totality, whether they are just floating around inside the spiritual monster called rose red or fused to it as part of it or mashed together to form one, i dont really know. while we as humans kind of need these things around because it proves that theres greater things than a made up history book in school glorifying war and takeover, you shoudnt go to that house, it will eat you. if i went it would definitley eat me…..

   Comment by if this house does what it does — September 20, 2009 @ 10:17 am

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