This column first appeared in April of 2009.
Tuckaway is undoubtedly the most famous bungalow in Indianapolis. The beautiful cottage style home rests peacefully on the west side of Pennsylvania Street in the Historic Meridian Park district. Previously, we visited the home’s history of past fame and glory, which gave hints of its lasting notoriety. Tuckaway is haunted. Homeowner Ken Keene was solely responsible for saving the house as well as for preserving its history, artifacts and stories. Ken has always been sensitive to the other side. Schooled in France as an artist, Ken’s beautiful impressionist style paintings adorned the walls of Tuckaway accentuating the salon feel of the hideaway home.
Paranormal researchers have always theorized that artistic people often act as conduits to the spirit world. This theory seems to be true in Ken Keene’s case as he often sensed the ghosts of Tuckaway. Although the home’s builder, fashion designer George Phillip Meier, and his wife, palmist and author Nellie Simmons Meier, undoubtedly haunt their beloved home, it is the ghost of the Meier’s niece Ruthie that Ken senses most often. Ruth Austin, raised in the home by the Meiers, was the person who sold the home to Ken in 1972. Luckily for Hoosier historians, meeting Nellie enabled Ken to convince her not to throw away all of the “junk” that had accumulated in the house for more than 60 years. Ken managed to save much of the home’s history by convincing Ruthie not to send the countless boxes that littered the home to the dump.
Ken bought the home and its contents, in the process saving it from the wrecking ball, and watched as the Historic Meridian Park district grew up around it over the ensuing years. These boxes of “junk” contained autographed photos, palm prints and letters from just about every celebrity you can imagine from the Roaring 20s through World War II: names like Albert Einstein, Carole Lombard, Joan Crawford, George Gershwin, Amelia Earhart, Mary Pickford and James Whitcomb Riley. In the case of Walt Disney, there are letters, photos and an entirely hand inked cartoon of Mickey Mouse drawn by Walt himself with an accompanying letter telling Nellie to “hang on to it because it might be valuable someday, I drew it myself.” These priceless artifacts are now kept in a bank vault.
In the case of Hollywood blonde bombshell Carole Lombard, Tuckaway was the last home she ever visited. Ms. Lombard, a native Hoosier, was in Indianapolis for a World War II war bonds rally and visited Nellie Meier for a palm “study.” Ken believes that Nellie confirmed Carole Lombard’s fears that her dashing husband, actor Clark Gable, was having an affair in her absence. Legend states that Nellie begged Carole not to get on the plane back to Hollywood that night, but to no avail. Tragically, on the night of Jan. 16, 1942, Carole Lombard boarded TWA Flight 3. The plane crashed into a mountain 32 miles southwest of Las Vegas, killing all 19 passengers, including Carole and her mother who were on the flight.
Ken deduced that it’s the nature of these emotionally-charged palm studies and their companion “Character Readings” that have helped cultivate the spirits of Tuckaway. Pictures of Ruthie adorned the walls of the cozy home. Ruthie it seems was an accomplished dancer in her own right, studying under the legendary Martha Graham. Ken often smells the scent of Ruthie’s perfume throughout the house. It’s the scent of “White Shoulders” and it’s a distinctively French perfume for, like Ken, Ruthie spent time away at school in France.
However, the home’s most famous ghost is Nellie, the palm reader to the rich and famous. Nellie’s old bedroom, located upstairs, is reportedly the most haunted room in the house. The first thing that you notice in the room is the bedside buzzer. It’s an old fashioned adornment attached to the wall just above the bed, and looks more like a light switch than a buzzer. Ken told me this was Nellie’s personal buzzer wired directly into her doctor’s office. Nellie spent the last few weeks of her life in this bed and died in the room in 1939. Ken states “This is the haunted room. This is Nellie’s room and no one wants to sleep in here.” I imagined that it must look pretty much the same as it did the day Nellie died, which is spooky.
Ken told how overnight guests often hear the voices and music of parties, with spirited conversation wafting up the central staircase from the downstairs drawing room. Not coincidently, this is the room where George Gershwin would play the piano for George and Nellie’s guests during his many visits to the home in the 1920s.
Ken believed the house was built on an American Indian burial ground. His backbone stiffened and his face went pale when he proclaimed, “I won’t go in the cellar at 3 a.m.” He wasn’t quite willing to share the reasons why, although he welcomed me to come back and try it myself, but quickly stated, “I won’t go with you.”
Tuckaway oozes spirituality and ethereal history. Surprises lurk around its every corner and treasures lined the home’s walls. The backyard revealed what must be one of the capital city’s only sleeping porches. Stand on its upper floor environs and it’s hard not to conjure up mental images of Savannah or Charleston’s architectural wonders. The ghosts of George, Nellie and Ruth have all been seen on this balcony at one time or another by many witnesses over the years.
The home’s backyard featured a guest house set in a quaint English garden setting. As we left, photographer Rhonda Hunter asked Ken for a good spot for a picture of the homeowner to use for the article. Ken rightly claimed that “anyone is as good as another” and went to a spot in the drawing room that I hadn’t noticed before.
“Here, this might do,” Ken said as he stood next to a facial wall plaque. He casually stated, “Here, this is Ruthie in an original piece of art created by Gutzon Borglum, the man who created the massive mountain bust statues that adorn the hills of Mount Rushmore National Park.” Just another of the wonders that were in Tuckaway.
Al Hunter is the author of the “Haunted Indianapolis” and co-author of the “Haunted Irvington” and “Indiana National Road” book series. His newest books are “Bumps in the Night. Stories from the Weekly View,” “Irvington Haunts. The Tour Guide,” and “The Mystery of the H.H. Holmes Collection.” Contact Al directly at Huntvault@aol.com or become a friend on Facebook.
