HAUNTED TAYLOR
Site offers spine-tingling encounters
ALEX LOWE
Special to the Press
Editor’s note: With Halloween fast approaching, the Taylor Press offers readers a continuing series about ghostly doings in town.
The recently opened Talbot Commons Pocket Hotel represents what some consider the future of a prosperous Taylor, spurred by the debut of Samsung Austin Semiconductor and the promise of new jobs and new residents.
However, the spirits that have always haunted a pre-Samsung Taylor are not easily banished. The Talbot
“
I was flooded with emotions.”
-Gretchen Upshaw, Spellcaster Ghost Tours Commons Pocket Hotel may offer one such example, where the town’s past meets its future in the present.
In 2021, architect Doug Moss, a Taylor resident, bought the property at 616 Talbot St. to renovate, redesign and repurpose the space as new ventures took shape downtown.
Located behind the former First Presbyterian Church, the Talbot Commons Pocket Hotel opened in what was once the education building. The hotel is an 11-bedroom, contactless inn. Moss owns the church and bought the fellowship hall as well.
Constructed in 1912, the church building has a sanctuary featuring stained glass, the original pipe organ and a raised basement. The former church building is still seeking a tenant and will be revitalized to suit.
Built in 1955, the education building now home to Talbot Commons also served as a fellowship space. The modern rooms today offer guests a wraparound porch, a covered entry and a vintageinspired screen door overlooking the landscaped courtyard.
Outside, visitors can enjoy artisan-made furniture, nighttime party lights and a fountain.
Gretchen Upshaw runs Spellcaster Ghost Tours, which offers patrons guided tours of many of Taylor’s reportedly haunted downtown locations. She has taken a special interest in the Talbot Commons Pocket Hotel.
The hotel debuted in the spring. Since then, Upshaw has conducted two investigations of the property, the most recent coming just a week ago. Her interest in the location came about by chance.
“I was having coffee with a friend, and we were seated near a couple of employees of the hotel,” Upshaw said. “I just decided to ask if the place was haunted, and their reaction made it clear that something was going on there.”
Upshaw discovered there were indeed reports of strange occurrences at the newly opened location — disembodied voices, strange noises, even a shadowy figure outside one of the rooms. Management granted Upshaw’s request for permission to investigate the location, she said. Upshaw investigated both the old church building and the rear commons area, which includes the 11 guest suites.
Upshaw walked through the church and its basement. Armed with audio recording equipment, she said she captured not just one but several electronic voice phenomena, which are sounds that occur in response to direct questions. In many cases, the EVP sounds are hard to make out, but in other cases, they are clear responses.
The basement was especially active with Upshaw receiving responses like “What is it?” when she touched a safe, she said.
While recording, Upshaw also indicated the equipment picked up recorded whispers, a disembodied cough and footsteps.
As she left the sanctuary, Upshaw said, “Goodbye,” and was met with the sound of a loud bang from deeper in the building.
Upshaw’s explorations took her through the old church and into the Commons suites as well, where she reported having an unsettling experience in a bedroom.
“When I approached the bedroom, it felt like pins and needles were working their way up my body starting at my feet,” she said. “I looked at my arms and could see the hair standing on end. As I stood facing the corner enclave next to the bed, I was flooded with emotions and started to cry. I had to get out of there. When I got outside, it all went away.”
Upshaw came back for second probe in October with an 11-member group from Austin, Temple and Jarrell.
“I wanted people from outside of Taylor to be part of the investigation,” she said. “Half of the group did the sanctuary, while I stayed in the basement in the same area I had captured a man’s voice recording a few months earlier. I was there for just a few minutes. I decided to try and provoke a reaction by saying out loud that if I did not get an answer soon, I was going to leave. Then I captured a very clear response that simply said … ‘Go!’” Upshaw collected even more EVP evidence. The other members of her party reported their own encounters.
“The group that was in the sanctuary, while I was in the basement, had an individual that reported having seen an orb that followed them as they made their way downstairs,” she said, adding another “said that she heard a woman’s voice in the sanctuary.”
The visitors said plenty of things seem to be going on at the pocket hotel — voices and footsteps. Knocks and bangs. Whistles and coughs. Shadows and orbs.
Meanwhile, as Taylor reinvents itself with high-tech businesses, some paranormal investigators may wonder whether the transformation will increase or decrease these reports and claims of supernatural occurrences.
Upshaw believes there is room for both.
“My hope is that Taylor’s unique history can be taught as a way of accentuating what the town has always been about,” Upshaw said. “I don’t think it has to be an either-or situation.”
