The spookiest spots in Sonoma

With October comes a chill in the air — or maybe a ghostly presence that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.

In Sonoma’s long history, it has accumulated a number of ghost stories, some are even in the most beloved and recognizable parts of the town, including the Sebastiani Theatre and the Buena Vista Winery.

The Index-Tribune spoke with the paranormal experts of Napa City Ghosts and Legends Walks Tour David Sisk, Matt Henriksen and Ellen MacFarlane about the history of hauntings in Sonoma.

“There’s two types of ghost walks,” Sisk said during a tour of the paranormal in Sonoma. “The first is a guy with a lantern and a top hat who’s all morose. The second is what we are: A paranormal team of investigators.”

From a case, Sisk and Henriksen produced K-II electromagnetic field detectors and copper dowsing sticks, devices they say allow them to detect the presence of spirits, and even communicate with the other side.

After equipping the guests of the tour with their own ghost-seeking devices, Sisk tells the lore of the ghostly history attached to the City of Sonoma.

The Whipping Tree

With the tours guests’ hands on the Whipping Tree, Sisk asked the patron what they saw — or felt.

One of the oldest haunts in Sonoma is the Whipping Tree, a 400-year-old tree that was the site of whippings and torture for Native American slaves by European colonizers, according to Carla Heine, the owner of the paranormal tour guide business Sonoma Speaks.

Father Jose Altamira ordered the punishments against the Indigenous slaves for a number of reasons: leaving the Mission San Francisco de Solano, speaking their Native languages and being late to church, Sisk said.

For three days and nights, the Native slaves of the Mission were chained naked to the tree after being whipped 40 times by a cat o’ nine tails flogger, Heine said. They were not allowed food or water, and many died, particularly in the heat of the summer.

“There used to be a creek there and the creek used to run red,” Heine said. “There were no buildings to obstruct the view. It was... It was a really graphic scene.”

Visiting the tree can spark feelings of loss, anguish and deep unhappiness, Heine said.

If visitors seek the tree after midnight, she said, they may hear the wailing of Native women who sang to the tortured souls chained to the tree trying to provide them strength.

Buena Vista Winery

Today, the Buena Vista Winery is one of the most acclaimed wineries in Sonoma, but dark events in its past led the entire cleaning crew to quit one night during the Great Recession, MacFarlane said.

“They had a full-bodied apparition of a man walking up the staircase in the tasting room,” MacFarlane said. “All of the staff quit that night... So we went in after that.”

When asked what parts of the winery were haunted, she said: “All of it.” Its barrel room has dim lighting and the brick walls add to the experience, making it feel almost like a crypt.

During their investigation of the winery, they heard banging on the third floor, a space that had not been remodeled and was “empty warehouse space.”

“It was like a herd of elephants,” MacFarlane said. “We looked at the building and the building was not being touched by any trees, any branches. Anything that could make that noise.”

The paranormal team believes an insane woman who lived in a home for wayward women haunts the winery, but she isn’t the only one, according to Heine. Chinese laborers built the wine cave, which collapsed, trapping 19 men with a large collection of brandy.

Leaders in Sonoma at the time debated whether they should try to retrieve the brandy still in the cellar — “never mind the Chinese,” Heine said.

As the oxygen in the cave vanished, the men screamed, “Help us, help us!” in Chinese with their last breaths, Heine said. Those words echo through the winery to this day.

Sebastiani Theatre

Legend has it that the Sebastiani Theatre is haunted by a slew of ghosts, including the likes of a stage manager who still believes she’s alive and working there, a method actor still convinced he’s a British king and a ghost known simply as the Shadow Man.

During a performance at the theater, Barbara, the very first stage manager of Sebastiani Theatre, was walking on the catwalk above the stage, Heine said. And though she had walked the catwalk many times before, she fell to the front of the stage with an audience still in their seats.

“It was halfway through a performance,” Heine said. “They closed the grand curtain and the impresario stepped out at the moment of her death and said, ‘Barbara is fine. She's just done. We're taking her home out the back door and she's going to rest.’”

The show resumed 20 minutes later, but Barbara’s shift never ended. MacFarlane said that the impresario’s words were the last ones Barbara heard — and she believed them.

“Everybody in town found that she had died,” Heine said, “but she never found out.”

In the women’s restroom of the theater, there exists another woman: a 16-year-old girl named Kelly in a 1920s style yellow drop-waist dress.

“She appears in the mirror behind women who are primping,” Heine said. “So if they're fixing their hair or their makeup or their clothing or their jewelry, she will appear over their shoulders.”

But while Barbara has helped children find their seat in the theater and Kelly fixes her hair with women of the living in the restroom, another much darker spirit lives on the balcony.

The Shadow Man, an angry and aggressive spirit resides in the balcony where no living souls dare go, and Heine even believes it’s aligned with a demon.

According to Heine, a murder happened on the left side of the balcony but was not reported at the time because it was “one of those families that Mr. (Robert) Lynch,” the former publisher of the Index-Tribune, “felt that he needed to protect.”

The balcony has been cordoned off for many years and has evaded the restoration process that much of the rest of the theater underwent. Likely, Sisk says, because people are too afraid to enter the balcony and be in the presence of the Shadow Man.

The only paranormal investigation of the theater was done by Sisk and MacFarlane, who said they experienced ghostly footsteps pacing back and forth along the balcony.

Patrons can feel a deep uneasiness if the Shadow Man attempts to reach out to them, Heine said, and a feeling of eyes staring at you, calling for your attention.

Beware the spirits of Sonoma, ask for protection and remember to close out of any attempts to communicate with souls beyond the grave, Sisk urged, lest a ghost attaches itself.

“Paranormal activity in Sonoma,” Heine said, “is a combination of natural, violent, energetic forces and communion with other dimensions over a long period of time. That’s just my take on it.”

Contact Chase Hunter at chase.hunter@sonomanews.com and follow @Chase_HunterB on Twitter.