Babirusa Mansion, Spektor Island take new owner
08/13/71
Babirusa Mansion and its surrounding Spektor Island, uninhabited for nearly a century and believed by many to be haunted, were purchased for an undisclosed sum Saturday by an undisclosed buyer represented by the Karnifax Corporation.
“Karnifax Corporation as a whole has vowed to renovate the island in an effort to preserve its rich past and maintain an even richer future,” said Leilah Hogenheim, an agent for Provincetown-based Deckem Realty Group.
Spektor Island was discovered by Thomas Paine III after the Cape Ann earthquake in 1755. The island was later the home of various treasure-seekers convinced of its proximity to the sunken Whydah pirate ship rumored to be filled with gold pieces.
The island then became the site of the Union Army’s Fort Swill during the Civil War. After a hurricane destroyed Fort Swill in 1866, an anonymous wealthy aristocrat purchased Spektor Island and commissioned architect Richard Morris Hunt to create Babirusa Mansion.
Construction of Babirusa was completed in 1888.
Not everyone welcomed Karnifax’s purchase.
“The only entity actually ‘eager’ to buy that godless island would be some godless corporation,” local fisherman Paul Valley said. “The Wydah cursed the Spektor and she remains cursed today.”
As evidence of the curse, Valley cited several names of fellow fisherman who slipped to their deaths off Spektor Island’s rocky cliffs while casting their lines from the edges of the Island.
“The ones who’ve lived after their visits to Spektor have been less lucky than the dead,” Valley said. “My father told me stories of men who’ve ended up in the padded rooms at Danvers [State Hospital], raving about the pirate ship’s ghost cook chasing them with cleavers. Good luck to whoever buys that island. They’ll need it.”
Leonard Domas of the National Registry of Historic Places (NRHP) lamented the purchase of the island and the mansion for other reasons.
“Babirusa Mansion is as much a historical part of New England as clam chowder and lighthouses,” he said. “To simply purchase the island with the drop of a tub of gold ducats like Karnifax has done without even considering [the NRHP’s] plans for Babirusa is callous and un-American.”
The NRHP added the Marble House mansion of Newport, R.I., to its register earlier this year and had hoped to do the same with the Babirusa Mansion.
Karnifax Corporation declined comment.
“Karnifax Corporation as a whole has vowed to renovate the island in an effort to preserve its rich past and maintain an even richer future,” said Leilah Hogenheim, an agent for Provincetown-based Deckem Realty Group.
Spektor Island was discovered by Thomas Paine III after the Cape Ann earthquake in 1755. The island was later the home of various treasure-seekers convinced of its proximity to the sunken Whydah pirate ship rumored to be filled with gold pieces.
The island then became the site of the Union Army’s Fort Swill during the Civil War. After a hurricane destroyed Fort Swill in 1866, an anonymous wealthy aristocrat purchased Spektor Island and commissioned architect Richard Morris Hunt to create Babirusa Mansion.
Construction of Babirusa was completed in 1888.
Not everyone welcomed Karnifax’s purchase.
“The only entity actually ‘eager’ to buy that godless island would be some godless corporation,” local fisherman Paul Valley said. “The Wydah cursed the Spektor and she remains cursed today.”
As evidence of the curse, Valley cited several names of fellow fisherman who slipped to their deaths off Spektor Island’s rocky cliffs while casting their lines from the edges of the Island.
“The ones who’ve lived after their visits to Spektor have been less lucky than the dead,” Valley said. “My father told me stories of men who’ve ended up in the padded rooms at Danvers [State Hospital], raving about the pirate ship’s ghost cook chasing them with cleavers. Good luck to whoever buys that island. They’ll need it.”
Leonard Domas of the National Registry of Historic Places (NRHP) lamented the purchase of the island and the mansion for other reasons.
“Babirusa Mansion is as much a historical part of New England as clam chowder and lighthouses,” he said. “To simply purchase the island with the drop of a tub of gold ducats like Karnifax has done without even considering [the NRHP’s] plans for Babirusa is callous and un-American.”
The NRHP added the Marble House mansion of Newport, R.I., to its register earlier this year and had hoped to do the same with the Babirusa Mansion.
Karnifax Corporation declined comment.