Ep. 19 - Murder/Suicide at the Greystone Mansion

The historic Doheny Greystone Estate is more commonly known as the Greystone Mansion and was even once known as the Hearst Castle. This glorious and grand home was built in the future home of the Trousdale Estates overlooking Beverly Hills. The mansion has been the set for several movies, music videos and television shows, but it was also the setting for a murder/suicide. The heir to one of the great financial empires, Edward "Ned" Doheny, Jr., the man who owned the house, was dead. For decades, visitors and staff have claimed that paranormal experiences have occurred at the Greystone. 

Edward Laurence Doheny bought the land that the Greystone Mansion would eventually be built upon. He had come to California from Wisconsin where he was born. Doheny was dreaming of gold, but he found something better, black gold. Doheny and his friend Charles A. Canfield struck oil in Los Angeles in 1892. Their interests traveled further south to Mexico and before long, the two men were the largest producers of oil in the world at that time. Doheny began building his financial empire. He had married Carrie Louella Wilkins in 1883 and they had two children, a daughter named Eileen in 1885, who died when she was seven-years-old, and a son named for Edward in 1893, who went by the nickname Ned. Edward and Carrie divorced in 1899 and Carrie committed suicide when Ned was just seven.

Ned was raised by his father's second wife who was also named Carrie. He married Lucy Smith of Pasadena in 1913 and his father gave the couple a lavish gift, a premium parcel of land consisting of 12.58 acres high up on a hill, offering citywide views. Ned and Lucy would have five children together. Right after they married, Ned attended USC for three years, earning a degree in business. He later would be elected to the Board of Trustees for the university. When World War I broke out, Ned joined the Navy and served as a lieutenant. When the war ended he joined the Doheny oil business as company Vice President. It was while serving in that position that he became embroiled in the Teapot Dome Scandal. Ned may or may not have known that when he was asked by his father to deliver $100,000 to US Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall that he was bringing the man a bribe. The bribe was to help the Doheny Oil Company to gain leases on government-owned oil reserves. Doheny Sr. would later be acquitted, but Secretary Fall was found guilty of taking the bribes and imprisoned. It's believed that Doheny was successful in arguing that the money had been a loan that wasn't paid back. Ned wasn't found guilty of anything.

Ned's wealth had grown and he decided to build a mansion on the land that his father had given him. Construction began February 15, 1927 and even though it would take three years for the estate to be completed, the family moved into the manor in September 1928. The mansion was designed by Southern Californian architect Gordon B. Kaufmann in the Tudor Revival style and was constructed by the P.J. Walker Company. Steel reinforced concrete made up the bulk of the home with Indiana limestone decorating the outside. Welsh slate covers the roof. The interior of Greystone is breathtaking. The wood was hand-carved from oak, the floors were covered in black and white inlaid marble, the seven chimneys were hand crafted by seven individual artists, the kitchen had a pantry that was built to secure a large adjoining wall safe and the living room opened onto a large balcony. The Doheny's would open the house up to guests on special occasions and have an orchestra playing out on that balcony. There were 55 rooms within the 46,054 square feet of living space. Servant rooms were on two floors of the east wing and the family employed around fifteen people. A circular staircase led into a recreation wing that spared no expense. There was a movie theater room, an original Brunswick bowling alley, billiard room and a hidden bar.

The construction cost for the entire property came to $3,166,578.12, which is $46 million in today's money. This included the lavish grounds that were designed by landscape architect Paul G. Thiene who used a potpourri of Gothic and neoclassic architectural styles in his design. This design included a lake, brooks, cascading waterfalls, a greenhouse, swimming pool and pavilion, tennis courts, stables, kennels, gatehouse and a fire station. The Mansion became known as Greystone since it was made from stone that had a grey appearance, but in its time it was also known as Hearst Castle. But Ned wouldn't live long enough to see everything finished. He would die from a gunshot wound on the evening of February 16, 1929.

The Doheny's had only lived in the partially finished mansion for five months when the 35-year-old Ned was found dead in a guest bedroom. His friend Hugh Plunkett was dead just outside the door of that bedroom. It is thought that the two men were having a disagreement that was described as a "spirited conversation" over the Teapot Dome Scandal. When Ned had delivered the money to Secretary Fall, Hugh Plunkett had been with him. The trial was underway and Hugh was very worried that he would be left as the fall guy. On this evening it is believed that Hugh went to the Gun Room and grabbed himself a weapon before going to talk to Ned. That weapon was a Colt Bisley single-action revolver. That single-action description is key in that it means that it takes less trigger-pull to fire a bullet. That fact leads some people to believe that this was a tragic accident that then led to suicide. Hugh could have pointed the gun at Ned as he threatened him and perhaps asked for assurances that he wasn't going to be hung out to dry. He was nervous and angry and may have accidentally pulled slightly on the trigger, which was enough to fire the weapon. The bullet struck Ned in the head. A shaken Hugh then turned the gun on himself after realizing what he had done and killed himself in the hallway outside of the guest bedroom as Mrs. Doheny and a doctor approached. The case was closed within 48-hours and found to be a murder-suicide. But there is still a mystery as to what the men were fighting over. Some claim that Hugh wanted a raise. Perhaps he was asking for hush money. And then there is the theory that Ned was the gunman. The Doheny family plot is in a Catholic cemetery. Ned wasn't buried in the family plot, but rather at a totally different cemetery, Forest Lawn in Glendale, all alone. Why? Was it because he was a murderer, rather than the victim and had then killed himself? Catholics don't approve of suicide and that may have prevented his burial.

Lucy continued living at Greystone until 1955. She had remarried and she and her second husband, Leigh M. Battson, sold most of the original land to the Paul Trousdale Corporation. They would develop Beverly Hills’ prestigious “Trousdale Estate” homes. The mansion and the land that was left was sold to Henry Crown of Chicago-based Park Grey Corporation. Mr. Crown never moved into the house and leased it out as a popular filming location. The City of Beverly Hills purchased the property from Mr. Crown in 1965 for approximately $1.3 million and they installed a water tank that serves as the City of Beverly Hills’ largest reservoir. Throughout the years, the house has had various staff and visitors. And many of those people claim that the mansion is incredibly haunted, more than likely because of the mysterious death of Ned Doheny. But there were other tragedies here as well.

Clete Keith was hired by the city of Beverly Hills in the 1990s to help with community events and in 2003 that role expanded to supervising the Greystone Mansion whenever it was being used for filming and photography. His office was in the gatehouse and although he knew very little about the property's history or paranormal activity, he would get familiar with it very quickly and have dozens of his own experiences. He was so intrigued by it all that he started collecting the stories of the unexplained activity and put it together in the 2020 book "Ghost of Greystone, Beverly Hills, Dramatic Eyewitness Accounts." I am going to share many of these accounts with you now from that work and encourage you to pick up the large tome because what I present here is but a small sampling. (Excerpts are read from the book.)

We will probably never know exactly what happened between Ned Doheny and his personal secretary and friend Hugh Plunkett. And that is perhaps why spirits linger here at the Greystone Mansion. Is the mansion haunted? That is for you to decide!