I’ve put up two new galleries for those who enjoy photographs. The first is personal and will appeal only to those who have a keen interest in Nick and my personal life, and a love for all things bridal. It’s a gallery of our wedding plans…

If so inclined, you can view Our Wedding Gallery here.

The second gallery is of greater interest, and I think you’ll find something to like therein. It’s a gallery of items from The Ellen Rimbauer Museum, which closed its doors in 2007. But its owners kindly sent me catalog photos of their inventory, so I’m able to show you lots of Ellen’s personal items purchased from the estate auction or donated by the Gilchrist family.

Check out The Ellen Rimbauer Museum gallery here.

The 11 page tome that was my research on the Briar Witch took up a fair chunk of my week, so I really didn’t have the energy or time to write a personal update since Emery’s investigation results. Sometimes personal updates are no fun; it’s more enjoyable to give you the research, or the artifacts, or the spooky stories. It’s more fun to think of Rose Red as still being here, because that’s where I’m sure Nick is, somewhere or another.

Truth is Rose Red is still here, just not in the same way. Life here in my Rose Suite has to go on, even when it gets weird. My friendships, like plants, need nurturing to grow. I knew Steve would be upset with me, you may recall I wrote about it a couple days ago. He did call me, though he wasn’t as angry as I expected. We arranged dinner out, which we did yesterday. Chill. Nice. The sort of thing completely normal friends with completely normal ties to each other do. Except the tie that binds him and me is losing our significant others in a haunted house eight years ago…

Far from normal, wouldn’t you say? (Continue reading…)

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day. Kiss me, I’m Irish! (With a name like O’Sullivan, could you guess?)

Let’s celebrate with new galleries: Nick’s Scrapbook & Ally’s Scrapbook. These will be ongoing galleries of photographs from my life and from Nick’s life, and sometimes from our life together. I’ve called them “scrapbooks” because I’ve done some of the photos on digital scrapbook pages - too much time on my hands this weekend, even with the huge Deanna Petrie project.

See larger versions of these & more on the new gallery pages.

I’ve been hard at work bringing you a huge new gallery dedicated to Deanna Petrie, the 40s film starlet who disappeared in Rose Red in 1946.

I received a large number of photographs from the owner of a Deanna Petrie museum in Fresno, CA, for inclusion in this site. In the gallery are photos of Deanna in films and magazines plus many of Deanna’s outfits from the Oscars, time out on the town, her movies, and Ellen Rimbauer’s January 15th parties. All but the 1946 Rose Red gown are chronicled, as that’s the gown in which she vanished and therefore the gown that’s best known (it was the gown Hedda Hopper declared the cocktail dress for 1946). But the gallery will show you the rest, which you may not have seen - like this one, worn at Ellen’s anniversary ball in 1942, the first January 15th party Deanna attended.

You’ll also find lots of information about Deanna’s personal life and career. So hop on over to the gallery and get to know one of Ellen’s most beloved guests…

Have you seen the latest photo galleries?

ABOVE: Check out photos & stories from Nick’s investigations in this ever-expanding gallery here. Lots of tales of things that go bump in the night - but warning, one photo is not for the squeamish!

ABOVE: Great pictures from an architecture magazine of the bits of Rose Red they could salvage here. See the process of restoring these elements for use in the Rose Suites.

ABOVE: Photos from around my Rose Suite here, showing the salvaged elements from Rose Red in action!

A local bridal magazine, Seattle Bride, did an interview with me in October of 2004. It’s all about Nick and my wedding (which is still hanging in the balance!) and quite a bit about Nick as well. I thought that you might find it interesting to get a better idea of our life together and our plans for the future.

The Ever Wedding
by Priscilla Baines for Seattle Bride, October 2004

Editor’s Note: It’s not often we profile a wedding steeped in tragedy. But when noted author Allison O’Sullivan agreed to talk to us about her on-hold nuptials with fiancé Nick Hardaway, who went missing in Rose Red in 2001, we simply couldn’t pass up the opportunity. We hope that you take away from this interview not a sense of sadness or wistfulness, but the infectious hope and optimism with which Allison still approaches her wedding.

October of 2001 was the month Ally O’Sullivan was to become Ally Hardaway, or for those who prefer formality, Mrs. Nicolas Hardaway. But in May of 2001 her husband-to-be vanished into thin air in famed haunted house Rose Red, which used to reside in the heart of downtown Seattle.

The house itself was a wedding present from John Rimbauer to his young wife Ellen Rimbauer, and one would think the romantic gesture would fill the place with love. But instead, unknown forces Ally continues to relentlessly study twisted it into a psychic black hole, devouring any who crossed its path. And on that now infamous Memorial Day weekend, 4 of the party of 9 who set out to explore the mansion met an unpleasant, if rather unresolved fate.

Ally now lives in a condo on the site of what once was the Rimbauer estate. Determined to somehow solve the mystery of her fiancé’s disappearance, she prefers to think of her wedding as pending, rather than called off. Specially for our October issue, she spoke to us about her life, her love, and her “ever” wedding. (Continue reading…)

Archived from the old site circa 2002.

As promised, I have photos of the roses in bloom here on the Rose Red property! If you recall from my May journal entries, the roses began blooming eerily early, which only piqued my curiosity about the passages in Ellen’s diary in which Sukeena somehow controlled the vegitation on the property.

Both these photos were taken last week in the quad / garden behind the complex. Of course the landscapers had to pick red roses, but I doubt they expected them to be in full bloom so quickly.

Strangest thing is, I cut a few of the roses and brought them up to place in my antique crystal bowl (that belonged to Ellen), and they began to die almost immediately after I’d cut them. It was like they withered in my hands. By morning the next day their petals were falling off!

(Continue reading…)