A 1907 postcard of the Badu House at 601 Bessemer Ave. in Llano.
Ghosts at the Badu House in Llano have reportedly moved chairs and keys, knocked items off shelves, appeared in windows, left handprints in sawdust, and even been heard conversing in empty rooms. One story tells of a ghost terrifying a black cat when it was left alone in Room 6, where, along with Room 3, guests felt a “presence.”
The Badu House at 601 Bessemer Ave. in Llano was built in 1891. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places and received a Texas Historical Commission marker in 1981.
It began as First National Bank of Llano but was out of the money business by 1894. That’s when French mineralogist Nicholas Joseph Badu bought the property for his family home. Some say Badu, who died in 1936, still “lives” there.
Haunted happenings and sightings include a young girl. Two guests spotted her looking at them from a second-story window as they crossed the street. They later found out that no little girl was in the hotel. The handprint in the sawdust belonged to a small child, and the voice in an empty room sounded like a girl, according to those who heard it.
Llano High School graduate Ray Theiss, who now works in nuclear security in Palacios, was a dishwasher at the Badu House restaurant while in school. He had his own spooky experience at the end of a shift one night.
“I was on my second week at the Badu when I had my weird experience there,” Theiss said.
He changed into his work clothes in an upstairs room, put his car keys in his pants pocket, then folded the pants and left them in a corner where his other clothes were neatly stacked. He was driving his parents’ truck and knew they would be angry if he lost the keys, so he was careful about where he put them.
“Well, one night, I got done, went upstairs to get my clothes, and found that my keys were missing,” he said.
Coworkers helped search the room, the restaurant—everywhere—for about an hour.
“Strangely enough, where I found them was on the edge of a bathroom sink in that very same room, very neatly laid out for me,” he said. “I had checked that bathroom while searching for them—twice! Could it have been one of my coworkers? Maybe. But given the fact that they were eager to get home after our shift, I don’t think it was.”
One of the waitstaff told Theiss of a similar experience.
“She said when she walked down to the main eating area, there were some chairs that were put back under the table, and all of a sudden, they slid right out,” he said. “She told me that before I started working there. And there were more hair-raising experiences in the past.”
A few of those stories come from Stan Venable, who bought the Badu House in 2010. He doesn’t believe all of them but admits that so many over such a long period lend some credibility to the tales. And then, of course, he has his own inexplicable experiences, which he recalled for The Picayune Magazine in 2014.
He was working with a friend in the kitchen’s walk-in freezer when they both heard a woman’s voice. He couldn’t make out the words but thought it was probably his wife, Karalina. Then, they heard it again and realized it was a girl’s voice.
Later, while installing a wine storage in Room 6, he and his workers took a lunch break. When they returned to the sawdust-covered room, they found a surprise.
“A handprint, a tiny handprint, was on one of the boards in sawdust,” Venable said.
Could it be the young girl the couple saw in the window peering out at them?
Karalina has her own story about a black cat she and Stan adopted. During cold winter nights, they put the cat with its food, water, litter box, and a small light in Room 6 until morning. The cat hated it.
“Sometimes, she would follow you back to the door and meow,” Stan said. “Sometimes, she would follow you back and just scream.”
One night, the cat was so loud that Karalina went upstairs to check on it.
“Halfway down the stairwell, if you look to the left, it’s at floor-level, she glances over and sees the cat, its feet and nose, and it’s screaming,” Venable said. “A shadow goes right to left behind the cat, obscuring the light as it passes. I’m not sure how to argue that. Now, I think there was a reason the cat was squalling.”
The Badu House is not currently open for business, so the ghosts have the place all to themselves.
