Here’s an AIA Wisconsin ghost story to kick off your Halloween month. 👻

Did you know The Stoner House, the organization’s headquarters in downtown Madison is reportedly haunted by a grieving, one-armed ghost?

The Wisconsin Architect’s Foundation (WAF) received the Joseph J. Stoner house in 1983. A Madison landmark and named to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980, the home had to be moved 100 feet north of its original location and massively repaired in October 1984.

Now for the spooky:

Several past owners, tenants, and neighbors have reported seeing a white-haired, one-armed apparition dressed in a black shawl and dark clothes haunting the halls of the house.

Walter Bond, son to Stoner House residents (1922-1950s) Varley and Ellen Bond, was reported by Madison Newspapers to have been killed March 22, 1947 in an accident in Paris.

The real story was Walter, a graduate of University of Wisconsin-Madison, was married to Mary Ann Suster while serving as a first lieutenant in the ordnance division of the Army. While he was stationed in Paris, Walter met and fell in love with Mlle. Germane Pesant, whom he vowed to return and marry after the war. He even made her the beneficiary of his life insurance policy (a true act of love)!

After being discharged from the service, abandoning his wife and young child in Wisconsin, and flying to Paris to marry the love of his life, Walter encountered a slight snafu.

Waiting for him at the door of Germane’s apartment was Victor Jean Armand Fortelle, a rival suitor! Walter Bond met a violent end.

But it is not Walter’s ghost who haunts the Joseph J. Stoner House. His father, Varley, was reportedly so distressed over the death of his son that he died of grief just three years later… to the day (March 22, 1950). Varley only had one arm.

So that’s the story of the Stoner House ghost.

And in case you were wondering, in 1951 a Madison court awarded Germane $7,000 and Mary Ann $3,000 of Walter’s life insurance money…

Info from historicmadison.org