Spirits specialty of house
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Spirits specialty of house
Maine restaurant former mortuary
By Alicia Anstead THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

BANGOR, Maine? When Rick Glencross and Jenny Murphy tell you they
serve fine food and spirits at the Fountain House, their restaurant on
Main Street in Winterport, they bring a whole new meaning to the word
spirits.

The restaurant is housed in an old funeral home, which is creepy in its
own right. It's also one of the oldest houses in Winterport, dating back
to the mid-1800s. Capt. John Atwood, a seaman, lived there for many
years with his family before James Foley opened a prominent funeral home
there in the 1920s.
The mortuary closed in 1992, and the place had fallen into disrepair by
the time Murphy noticed it and peeked through its windows.

"I fell in love with it," she said. "Initially, we were not going to
mention the funeral home history, but then, when we got into the place
and odd things happened, it became a thing."
Odd things?

"Yeah, you know, like objects moving in the kitchen, lights going on and
off, footsteps in an empty room, voices talking. You name it," Murphy
said.
Then there was the luminescent woman who walked by Glencross one night
when he was upstairs eating dinner on a TV table near the restaurant
kitchen, which is on the second floor.
"You mean Mehetabel?" said Glencross, using the name he has given the
vaporous form that walked past, looking neither left nor right. "I'm 54
years old, and I've never seen anything like that. I knocked my TV table
over to go take a look."
Mehetabel was gone. She may have come back another recent night when a
waitress heard footsteps and felt a breath of hot air on her neck, but
she turned around only to discover she was alone in the room.

"It's not scary or anything like that," assured Glencross. "Nothing is
flying around, and there's no voice saying: 'Get out.' " For that last
part, he lowered his voice as if he were possessed by a, well, ghost.
It's not as if Glencross and Murphy are trying to play down the spooky
angle, either. The restaurant decor includes posters of pop cultures
most nefarious and in some cases lovable characters, such as the team
from "Ghostbusters," Elvira, Casper the Friendly Ghost, Herman Munster
of the 1960s TV comedy "The Munsters" and Barnabas Collins, the vampire
from another 1960s classic, "Dark Shadows."

Black roses, Ouija boards and ghoulish kitsch of all sorts ornament the
walls. It's a testament to eBay, said Murphy, although some of the
actual photos are copies from the Winterport Historical Association.
"I don't know about the ghost business, but I think the restaurant is a
wonderful thing," said Theodora Weston, archivist for the Winterport
Historical Association and a retired math teacher from Hampden Academy.
She and her husband ate at Fountain House the other night and she said
they'd be going back.

"For a long time, we haven't had a nice upscale eating place in
Winterport. The pizza place and Rosie's Diner are very important, too.
But we've always had to go to Bangor for fine dining. So this is very
good."
Glencross and Murphy opened the place in October (of course) to fulfill
Murphy's ambition of having her own restaurant and Glencross' dream to
run his own music venue. They also wanted to provide a more upscale
restaurant between Belfast and Bangor. Every night except Mondays, when
the restaurant is closed, Glencross either performs ? he's a guitarist
and singer ? or presents musicians in an adjoining room called the
"haunted pub." Its centerpiece is a glass coffee table containing a
Victorian wicker viewing casket.

The funeral theme doesn't creep out the owners and staff. Nor does it
seem to affect business for the worse. Some people have commented that
the conversion from funeral home to dining room is in bad taste. On
weekends, the rooms have been packed.