http://www.sptimes.com/2006/12/05/Citrus/House_has_a_past__may.shtml

House has a past, maybe even a spirit
The home of Brooksville's redevelopment coordinator is old and full of
character. And it doesn't hurt that the house might be haunted.
By MICHAEL KRUSE


BROOKSVILLE - Brian Brijbag took a job this past summer as this city's
redevelopment coordinator. He got an office and a badge and got going as
an upbeat leader of the continued revitalization efforts. But the most
meaningful thing he's done so far might be a real estate transaction: He
moved into the big Victorian house on a corner of W Fort Dade and Lemon
avenues.
Everybody who's been around these parts for any length of time knows
about 122 W Fort Dade.

Some call it the old Weeks house.
Some just call it the yellow house.
And some call it haunted.

Above all, though, the house is authentic, a still stately antique, and
so, so Brooksville, with the tin roof and the creaky doors and the
uneven floors and the tall thick-trunk oaks and a whole mess of Spanish
moss.
"I'm putting my money where my mouth is," Brijbag said not too long ago.
"If you want to be a part of this city, this is how you do it. Right
here."

The house is like the town. It is a character in a story - of love and
time, layers of paint and places to hide, lost treasure and stubborn
ghosts.
Over in the local history center at the Russell Street train depot is a
"house" drawer with a file labeled "Weeks."

The file says the house was built in 1882 by a rich owner of a sawmill
named G. Gordy. All of the wood was heart of pine.
The Weeks family owned the house from the 1930s to the '70s. Joe Weeks
still runs the hardware store on Main Street. It was his uncle and his
cousin who had the house.
Property records show it was sold in 1980.

And in '86.
Then twice in '88.
Then again Sept. 17, 2001, for $49,500, and just three days later for
$114,000.
The Brijbags - Brian, his wife, Amy, their three small children - bought
it in late September for $225,000.

But most of what is said and thought about this house doesn't come from
plain paper records.
Local lore has it that in the 1930s, a man showed up and persuaded the
Weekses to let him rip apart the fireplace because he was sure Gordy had
hidden his fortune behind the bricks. He found nothing and left town.
The place sat mostly vacant in the '70s and '80s. Vagrants stayed there
at night and used candles and matches to spark their cigarettes. People
walking by would get spooked by the flickering lights.

One owner in the late '80s and '90s bought the property and kept it for
13 years just so he could dig up the yard and rip open the walls looking
for treasure.

The man found arrowheads, rusted keys in old-time shapes, a nickel from
1890 and a quarter from 1892. He told a reporter from the Times in 1995
that his heart went "pitter-patter" when he found something good and how
digging in the ground made him feel like a part of the past.
Local artist Mary Alice Queiros once was doing an ink sketch of the
house when the man showed up with his shovel.

"He was digging up the ground, digging holes, tearing floorboards
apart," she said. "This little short man with glasses."
But the man also told the Times that he once was turning a doorknob when
it moved on its own. "I'm serious," he said.
The place has a space on hauntedflorida.com. The Web site is set to
spooky music. This is part of what it says about the Weeks house: "Doors
being slammed and whispers are also very common."

"There's nothing to that," Joe Weeks said the other day at his store. He
visited his aunt and uncle and cousins a lot when he was little.
"Never saw a ghost," he said. "Or heard one."
"I can tell you at one time it was haunted by termites," said Joe Mason,
a local lawyer, born-and-bred Brooksville. "It was remaining standing
only because the termites were holding hands. Maybe the ghosts got
killed by the termite fumigation."

That fumigation happened in 1987. Some around town say it didn't work.
At least not on the ghosts.
Richard Butts is the Realtor from Weichert who sold the Brijbags the
house. Butts was inside the house for the first time about 15 years ago
when he was an insurance agent. He took photos and said he saw on the
prints strange white balls of light.

He's a believer.
"It's the quintessential Brooksville historical property," he said.
Haunts and all.
Brijbag, 30, graduated from Spring Hill's Springstead High School in
1994, went to Florida State University and then came back and lived in
Spring Hill for eight years.
But his wife comes from an old Brooksville family. And he helped found
the Bandshell Bash and was active in the local Fine Arts Council even
before he was on the city payroll and moved down the hill from City
Hall.

He started moving in late in October. Boxes were still stacked up in the
living room in late November.
But the house had hot water and potted plants and the stairs were
painted Victorian cranberry and the kids' baby pictures were up on the
wall.
From his yard, he can see the water tower, the American flag on the top
of the courthouse and the back of the WWJB 1450-AM building.

He walks to work.
Downtown is busier than he thought it would be - but not in a bad way.
Rumbling trucks and cars drive by. The kids get up at night.
Brijbag's heard the haunted talk.
Now and again, he said, the bathroom door downstairs floats open. It
usually happens when he and his family are about to leave.
Then, the other night, this happened: He had Lightning hockey tickets
and came home to change into some jeans and ran up the stairs and saw
that the white attic door was open and the silver eye-hook lock was
broken off and on the floor.

He figured maybe the lock was loose. So he picked it up and fixed it and
closed the door and set the alarm and left the house.
He was only five minutes toward Tampa when his cell phone rang. It was
ADT Home Security. There's movement in your house, he was told.
He turned around and drove back. Brooksville police officers were
already there.

The officers walked around the old house at 122 W Fort Dade. They went
inside and crawled into the attic and shined their flashlights into the
dark.

It was empty.

But they looked.

And they listened.

Michael Kruse can be reached at 352 848-1434 or mkruse@sptimes.com.