16

ON THE BRINK

When Michelle Ann Heimburger was five years old, she and her family moved to Lakewood from Hartsgrove, Ohio. Her mother loved art and architecture, while her father, Allen, was interested in the paranormal. One day, the Heimburgers were driving down Franklin Boulevard admiring the houses. When they were stopped at a red light at the corner of Franklin and West 44th Street, Allen Heimburger, knowing the castle’s colorful past, told his daughter to look up at the windows and see if she could see the lady in black. Michelle was hooked. From that day on, she swore she would someday own that house.

In the years that followed, the family moved around the area quite a few times. Still, Michelle never forgot about the beautiful home in Ohio City or the promise she made to herself. After graduating from high school, Michelle attended Bowling Green State University, where she received degrees in literature and art history. After graduating from college in 1996, she was contacted by a friend who had just taken a job with a new web company in California called Yahoo! and informed her that they were hiring. Michelle traveled to San Francisco, where she interviewed for a job with the company. Upon her return to Ohio, she learned that the company wanted her. Michelle Heimburger became its 100^th employee.

In early 1999, Michelle’s cousin contacted her to tell her that the Franklin Castle was again up for sale. Considering her new occupation and knowing that there was much security in this new industry, she realized that the time had finally arrived for her to actually achieve her childhood dream. In early April, Michelle and her father toured the magnificent stone mansion. Upon the conclusion of this tour, Michelle offered the sum of $350,000, and on April 14, 1999, Michelle Ann Heimburger became the Franklin Castle’s eleventh owner.

One month later, Michelle threw a large castle-warming party that included a rock band playing in the fourth floor ballroom. A professional photographer was flown in from California to document the event, and the hundreds of guests were encouraged to explore the house. Shortly afterward, renovations began.

The first thing to go was the pink hot tub on the third floor, followed by the short bar that had been installed as a replacement for the larger one on the third floor. The linoleum tile and carpeting on the stairs were also torn up. Finally, the dummy walls that Mr. DeVinko had added were torn down. Michelle planned to restore the house to its original glory and use it solely as her residence. Still, the idea of later converting it into a bed-and-breakfast was not entirely ruled out. As to the idea of opening the home to paranormal investigators, that was out of the question.

Keeping her job in California made it nearly impossible for Michelle to stay in Cleveland for any extended amount of time. Restorations were being done little by little, whenever she had a chance. Still, that October saw one of the best Halloween parties that Cleveland had seen in many years. Again, more than four hundred guests were treated to an extravagant evening in Cleveland’s most notorious haunted house. Sadly, among the guests were many party crashers. It’s believed that one of these party crashers unbolted the back door. This was something that would haunt Michelle for many years to come.

One week later, on November 6, 1999, a twenty-nine-year-old man staying at St. Herman’s House of Hospitality, just west of the Franklin Castle, entered through that unlocked back door and set a fire near the first-floor boiler room. The fire quickly spread and traveled up the dumbwaiter shaft, where it burned through the fourth floor. Firefighters arrived shortly after 11:00 p.m. and had the blaze under control in about an hour. The arsonist was located on the first floor. He smelled of alcohol and was incoherently rambling of two other men being with him, though no one else could be located. He was transported to MetroHealth Medical Center, where he was treated for first-degree burns and smoke inhalation. Afterward, he was released into police custody and charged with aggravated arson and aggravated burglary. He was found guilty and sentenced to five years’ incarceration.

Coal room on the first floor of the Franklin Castle, where the 1999 fire was started. Photo by William G. Krejci.

Damage estimates were placed between $200,000 and $500,000. Michelle enlisted the services of the architectural firm Robert Maschke and Associates, and repairs began. The Infinity Construction Company was contracted to handle the massive workload of this restoration, and by the summer of 2001, all of the charred debris had been removed and the mansard roof replaced. During these renovations, some of the damage the house received from the tornado of 1953 was corrected. A new sandstone gable was installed on the southwest corner of the home, and the top of the tower once again came to a peak.

The fact is that Michelle Heimburger loved the Franklin Castle from the first moment she saw it. After the fire, she was completely devastated. It began to look as though her plans to finish the home weren’t going to be realized. Then, in 2003, a new person emerged, one who looked to be able to complete the work that she started.

Thus arrived Charles Milsaps, real estate developer and owner of Milsaps Properties of Lakewood. Milsaps approached Michelle with an offer to purchase the house for the sum of $650,000, to which she agreed. Milsaps’s plan for the house was to convert it into the Franklin Castle Club, an exclusive members-only club, catering to downtown businessmen, the wealthy and newer residents of the neighborhood who wished to join an urban club rather than a country club. His earliest estimates put a price tag of nearly $3 million on the renovations.

New plans called for a first-floor, eight-thousand-bottle wine bar and a second-floor sixty-four-seat dining hall. The third floor would be converted into the club lounge, and the fourth would become a banquet and meeting room with seating for about eighty. Within the first few weeks of the announcement, Milsaps claimed to have already sold fifty memberships, with the intention of selling a total of five hundred. A one-time membership fee of $5,000 was required, along with a $200 monthly maintenance fee to be spent at the club on meals, drinks or overnight stays.

Almost immediately, friction arose between Milsaps and Ward 13 councilman Joe Cimperman, son of John D. Cimperman, the former Cleveland landmarks commissioner who’d assisted Barbara Dreimiller with her first article on the Franklin Castle. Councilman Cimperman’s concerns were that the neighborhood was primarily residential. He was certain that the project would require zoning variances for parking and other matters to meet the demands of the neighborhood.

Unfortunately, the Franklin Castle Club never came to fruition. By 2005, very little work had been done on the home since Charles Milsaps took over the property and moved into the carriage house. It was during that time that Haunted Cleveland Tours, operated by Chuck Gove and Beth Richards, was making regular stops at the house. Tours were given of the home but were limited to the first and second floors, the third and fourth floors being in too poor a condition to allow guests.

The following year, an article appeared in the Cleveland Plain Dealer titled “New Strange Doings at Franklin Castle.” Reporters Michael O’Malley and Joan Mazzolini uncovered more of Charles Milsaps’s involvement with the house. Through a website, Milsaps billed the house as a members-only social club, though the club still didn’t exist. His claim on this site was that the club featured fine dining, overnight stays, twenty-four-hour limousine service, a Florida beach house called the Sand Castle and a seventy-two-foot yacht called the Sea Castle. The beach house, he would later say, was actually owned by his parents, and while the yacht pictured on his website was not the actual yacht, he claimed that one was owned by relatives. Furthermore, it was now learned that Milsaps was not a real estate developer at all, as he owned no properties. As to the fifty memberships that he claimed to have already sold, that also was not true. He now recanted his previous statement, saying that fifty memberships had been “reserved” might have been a more appropriate comment.

Franklin Castle boarded up in 2006. Photo by William G. Krejci.

Councilman Joe Cimperman stated in this article that he was highly opposed to the proposed club. Listening to the concerns of neighbors, especially the group that operated St. Herman’s House of Hospitality, Councilman Cimperman vowed to block a liquor license for the club.

At the time this article was released, two contractors were attempting to collect money from Milsaps. The Cleveland Lumber Company had placed a lien on the property, claiming $1,650 in unpaid lumber bills, and interior designer Chris Demkow had just won an $11,500 judgment against Milsaps for renovations done in the carriage house, where Milsaps had been living.

Descendants of Hannes and Louise Tiedemann visit the Franklin Castle in 2006. Left to right: Kari Jonassen Tiedemann, Carla Wiebenson Henebry Branscombe, Carl Hans Tiedemann II, Art Branscombe, Anne Wiebenson Hammond and Dora Louise Wiebenson. Photo by William G. Krejci.

The house continued to fall into further disrepair. At one point, a sewer line ruptured in the southeast corner of the house, ruining the floor of what had once been the servants’ parlor. Milsaps decided to remove the entire floor and take everything down to the dirt base beneath. Unfortunately, this was not limited to the former parlor, but rather was done in every room on the lowest level. Further damage continued on the upper floors. Windows on the fourth floor, in what had once been the back bedroom, had not been covered properly. The house was now overrun with pigeons, their droppings covering the floor in piles as high as six inches. The future of the Franklin Castle looked bleak.

In 2006, the descendants of Hannes Tiedemann were made aware of the condition to which their ancestors’ house had fallen. A trip to Cleveland was coordinated by Dora Louise Wiebenson, a great-granddaughter of Hannes and Louise Tiedemann. Accompanying her on this trip were her first cousins Anne Hammond and Carla Branscomb and a second cousin, Carl Hans Tiedemann II. A tour of the Franklin Castle was arranged with Michelle Heimburger, though they were met with some friction by Charles Milsaps at the gate. Ultimately, he admitted them and proceeded to walk them through their ancestral home.

Following this tour, the descendants of Hannes and Louise Tiedemann expressed much disdain regarding the state to which their greatgrandparents’ house had fallen. Carl Tiedemann had, at this point and for some time after, considered purchasing the house outright and restoring it by his own means, but that plan was ultimately abandoned.

Due to the fact that very little work had been done on the house, as well as the fact that Milsaps wasn’t living up to his end of their agreement, Michelle Heimburger decided that she would seek a new owner. On March 21, 2011, as Charles Milsaps was in the process of moving out, the carriage house where he’d been living was set on fire by an arsonist. Fortunately, most of his belongings had been removed, and he was not at home at the time of the fire.

With luck, a new owner would realize Michelle Heimburger’s original dream—to see the house restored to its former glory.