Last week, my husband and I celebrated his birthday.  We went for a quick drive through the Hill Country of Texas and ended up in the charming, historic town of Llano.  We decided to try the Badu House, a popular restaurant and bar.  Oddly enough, from the moment I entered the building I knew I was watched—in the doorway, near the stairs, and as I entered the bar.

It was a warm, spring afternoon and we asked to be seated on the patio.  As I stared up at the wooden blinds covering the second story windows, I had the strangest feeling that someone was peering down at me--there was a tickle on the back of my neck and arms.  The food was tantalizingly delicious and the atmosphere on the patio was calm and peaceful, but I couldn’t keep my eyes from the upstairs windows.  I finally asked to speak to the manager.  I told him my husband and I loved old buildings and asked him for a tour.  He led us across the street to the banquet building.  It was lovely with huge windows and carefully restored rock walls and wood floors, but I felt nothing out of the ordinary and wanted to return to the Badu House.  I knew there was someone in that house!  So, I took a deep breath and quietly asked if the building was haunted.  The manager smiled.  

Les Terrell has managed the Badu House since the summer of 2007.  “I have always believed in ghosts and was fascinated by them, but had no personal experience to go on.  About a week later, I could no longer say that,” he explained as he led us upstairs.  He told us that his first experience came with a strong smell of cologne that lasted about three minutes, a smell so strong he could taste it.  Then he heard a shuffling sound, and the sound of moving cloth.  And he saw a shadow.  The shadow was moving.  “All these things made it clear to me that I was needed downstairs at that moment in time,” he said.  “I guess that was my welcome to the Badu House!” 

Terrell has received an extended welcome.  Once, as he descended the stairs, he heard a door slam behind him on the upper floor.  He also heard something tapping and scratching on a closed door a few feet away from where he was working.  Needless to say, there was nothing on the other side.  He heard shoes scuffling across the floor, coming from a darkened hallway and recorded heavy, creepy breathing and doors slamming on digital audio left overnight between shifts.  These sounds were recorded five or six times over a few hours. 

Two weeks ago, shortly after he started his morning shift, Terrell saw his first ghost.  “It was standing at the other end of the hall when I came upstairs.  When I looked up I saw…the outline of a person side step out of the hall and into my locked office.  I opened the door and nobody was there.  Then last Saturday, April 28th, I was here alone counting liquor late at night.  It felt so weird that I couldn’t wait to get out of here.  About the worst I have felt it.”  Terrell said that sometimes, when he’s working alone upstairs, the atmosphere is almost unbearable.

Psychic clairvoyant Sylvia Brown visited the Badu House and claims there is a female entity in the building.  Hill Country Ghost Hunters has conducted two investigations.  “One investigator was touched on the side of the head with a simultaneous EMF spike,” Terrell explained.  “I stayed with them all night running the same equipment and we caught twelve unbelievable EVPs.  One of the female investigators was touched twice that evening.  We caught three distinctly different voices during the investigation.  Two were definitely male--one had the same deep voice tone we caught on a December first investigation--and one was female.”  Terrell played the recordings for us.  In one of the recordings, a male and female seem to be communicating with each other, and they were chatting about the paranormal investigators.  Austin Paranormal also did an investigation and captured an EVP of someone humming a tune.    

The Badu House was built in 1891 and originally served as the First National Bank of Llano.  The building is near the water (as are most buildings in the Texas Hill Country) and is also near a number of large stone quarries in Granite Shoals and Marble Falls. In the spring of 1898 the building was purchased by French native N.J. “Professor” Badu, a noted local mineralogist. Badu remodeled the building into a home for his family and it was passed down for generations until the 1980s when it was sold and turned into a restaurant. It is now owned by Ted Lusher, a Llano rancher and Austin businessman.  Lusher is also a collector of art and antiques.  The top floor of the Badu House, where most of the activity takes place, is the home of the rosary, family photo album and china that once belonged to Maximillian I, Emperor of Mexico, as well as an antique rocking chair and bed, a rather mysterious painting of Maximillian, and other furnishings that could conceivably attract their former owners.  “I think if you are a sensitive, this place is probably never quiet,” Terrell said.  “Luckily, I am not.”

According to Terrell, staff members at the Badu House have ghostly encounters two to three times a month.  “We have experienced slamming doors, swinging doors moving on their own…phantom smells, full body apparitions, sounds of dishes crashing at night and no broken dishes found, cold spots, voices, whispers, laughing….you name it.”  Both guests and staff frequently report feeling as if they were touched by someone when they were alone.  One male staff member had something pulled out of his back pocket then stuffed back in.  When he turned around to berate the playful thief, he realized he was also alone in the room.  Another employee arrived early for work and decided to lie down on the antique bed upstairs, but someone grabbed her foot then touched her hip.  Last November, one of the managers saw a white shadow at the bottom of the stairs. 

Shortly before I posted this blog, I received a message from Terrell.  “A staff member saw a ghost just 10 minutes ago,” the message read.  “A shadow…she could make out the arm and shoulder walking into the Maximillian room.  Never boring here.  As an added bonus…It just so happens that I jumped out and scared her one minute later…before I knew what happened. Thought you might find that interesting.”