Victorian-era house has an extra guest

A ghostly tenant is said to stay on, flirting with the modern world

By Kristine Kisky

The Portland Tribune, May 6, 2003, Updated Oct 30, 2009

The distinctive John Palmer House has been mentioned in many newspapers, magazines and books. However, an interior presence also has garnered some attention, including a passage in Jefferson Davis’ “Ghosts, Critters & Sacred Places of Washington and Oregon II.”

While researching the book a few years ago, Davis came across accounts of a possible presence at Portland’s Palmer House. He spoke briefly with Mary Sauter, who owned the home with her husband, Richard, for more than 30 years. Davis says Mary Sauter confirmed, “Yes, we’ve got a ghost; no, it’s not a lie.”

“When we were there, we suspected there was something going on,” Richard Sauter says. “How we got onto the fact was we had a guest staying with us when we were running the bed-and-breakfast. É She had this clairvoyant-type thing.”

One morning the guest informed the Sauters, “There’s a lady in your attic É surrounded by theater trunks, and she wears a wide-brimmed hat.” Immediately, the Sauters thought of Lotta Hoch, who lived in the house from the 1910s to the 1930s.

“She was an opera singer in Europe and had been many times on stage,” so being surrounded by costume trunks was likely familiar to her, Richard reasoned. Neighbors previously had told the Sauters that Lotta used to work in the Palmer House yard, always wearing a dress and a wide-brimmed hat.

The guest assured the Sauters that the presence wasn’t harmful.

“She said she was here to oversee what we’re doing, and she likes what we’re doing,” Richard says.

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