Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Mr. Stein’s ghost

Things are strangely quiet here

The haunted porch: heavy feet, creaking boards
The haunted porch: heavy feet, creaking boards

“Any ghosts?” I ask.

Chris Pro sits for a moment in the chair that Charles Stein himself sat in, back around 1900. Things are strangely quiet here in the parlor with its velvet table drapes and lanterns and old photos and grandfather clock. Who’d guess we were just down the road from noisy Highland and 18th?

Christopher Pro, caretaker and historian, plays the Steins’ foot-pumped organ

It’s the Stein family’s farmhouse, the last original farm in National City, with animals and crops and orchards, and a complete butter-colored Victorian farmhouse with wrap-around porch, and tattered barn. Chris is the caretaker here.

Sponsored
Sponsored

Durango navigates carrot

“Ghosts? One, maybe,” he says. He’s winding up an ancient Victrola and putting a 78-rpm record on. Kay Kyser, “Ole Buttermilk Sky”. “The first six months, every night as I was snuffing out the last lantern upstairs, I’d hear someone walking along the side porch. Heavy, regular steps. The boards would creak. I’d come down and look and listen. Then I’d go out and check the gate. Nothing was ever disturbed.”

Uh, lantern? “I’m fanatical,” he says. “I don’t allow anything modern here. No TV, no electricity, only basic machinery, and my cellphone.”

He suspects Mr. Stein, the German immigrant and innovative farmer who lived here for 50 years, has been checking up on him.

Lori Anne and Chris

Chris is an expert on the history of the place. Lori Anne Peoples, too. She’s sitting by the fireplace. She has long been president of the National City Historical Society, as well as a one-time elected City Clerk. She almost single-handedly saved the farm when developers were going to demolish it and put up apartment blocks, back in 1990.

“Yes, probably Mr. Stein,” she says.

“Uh oh, feeding time,” says Chris. We follow him back through the kitchen, still equipped with the Steins’ actual butter churn and the $100 wood-burning stove that Bertha Stein must have spent hours in front of. Chris starts gathering grain bowls, grain, and carrots. Lori Anne and I follow him out past a water hand pump, a 100-year-old Torrey Pine tree and an ancient wisteria vine, still flowering, whose leaves they use to sweeten water.

While Chris goes ahead, Lori Anne introduces me to Hopper, the Nigerian Dwarf Dairy Goat; Petey, his Miniature Nubian buddy; Chief, the Narragansett turkey and his Bourbon Red bride Pocahontas; two Kune Kune pigs from New Zealand, Rosy and Willa (Willa’s named after a beloved local cop); Ramona the hair lamb from Spain who sheds her own wool; Durango, the Sicilian donkey; Bobi, Fred, and Ethel, emus from Australia; Griffin and BunBun the bunnies; plus countless fruit, still on their trees, including brown turkey figs, black mission figs, Babcock peaches, and yellow plums. “Mr. Stein said you can grow anything in National City,” she says. “He’s right. It’s a pity the city’s built on top of such rich soil.”

On Saturdays, the farm’s open to the public, from 10 am to 2 pm. And plenty of children come, partly to earn community service hours. “We give the kids chores,” says Lori. “That includes scrubbing laundry on a washboard. And guess what? Boys love doing that way more than girls.”

And Chris’s ghost? The footfalls stopped after six months. “I guess old Mr. Stein decided I would take care of his house after all,” he says.

The latest copy of the Reader

Please enjoy this clickable Reader flipbook. Linked text and ads are flash-highlighted in blue for your convenience. To enhance your viewing, please open full screen mode by clicking the icon on the far right of the black flipbook toolbar.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Now what can they do with Encinitas unstable cliffs?

Make the cliffs fall, put up more warnings, fine beachgoers?
Next Article

Escondido planners nix office building switch to apartments

Not enough open space, not enough closets for Hickory Street plans
The haunted porch: heavy feet, creaking boards
The haunted porch: heavy feet, creaking boards

“Any ghosts?” I ask.

Chris Pro sits for a moment in the chair that Charles Stein himself sat in, back around 1900. Things are strangely quiet here in the parlor with its velvet table drapes and lanterns and old photos and grandfather clock. Who’d guess we were just down the road from noisy Highland and 18th?

Christopher Pro, caretaker and historian, plays the Steins’ foot-pumped organ

It’s the Stein family’s farmhouse, the last original farm in National City, with animals and crops and orchards, and a complete butter-colored Victorian farmhouse with wrap-around porch, and tattered barn. Chris is the caretaker here.

Sponsored
Sponsored

Durango navigates carrot

“Ghosts? One, maybe,” he says. He’s winding up an ancient Victrola and putting a 78-rpm record on. Kay Kyser, “Ole Buttermilk Sky”. “The first six months, every night as I was snuffing out the last lantern upstairs, I’d hear someone walking along the side porch. Heavy, regular steps. The boards would creak. I’d come down and look and listen. Then I’d go out and check the gate. Nothing was ever disturbed.”

Uh, lantern? “I’m fanatical,” he says. “I don’t allow anything modern here. No TV, no electricity, only basic machinery, and my cellphone.”

He suspects Mr. Stein, the German immigrant and innovative farmer who lived here for 50 years, has been checking up on him.

Lori Anne and Chris

Chris is an expert on the history of the place. Lori Anne Peoples, too. She’s sitting by the fireplace. She has long been president of the National City Historical Society, as well as a one-time elected City Clerk. She almost single-handedly saved the farm when developers were going to demolish it and put up apartment blocks, back in 1990.

“Yes, probably Mr. Stein,” she says.

“Uh oh, feeding time,” says Chris. We follow him back through the kitchen, still equipped with the Steins’ actual butter churn and the $100 wood-burning stove that Bertha Stein must have spent hours in front of. Chris starts gathering grain bowls, grain, and carrots. Lori Anne and I follow him out past a water hand pump, a 100-year-old Torrey Pine tree and an ancient wisteria vine, still flowering, whose leaves they use to sweeten water.

While Chris goes ahead, Lori Anne introduces me to Hopper, the Nigerian Dwarf Dairy Goat; Petey, his Miniature Nubian buddy; Chief, the Narragansett turkey and his Bourbon Red bride Pocahontas; two Kune Kune pigs from New Zealand, Rosy and Willa (Willa’s named after a beloved local cop); Ramona the hair lamb from Spain who sheds her own wool; Durango, the Sicilian donkey; Bobi, Fred, and Ethel, emus from Australia; Griffin and BunBun the bunnies; plus countless fruit, still on their trees, including brown turkey figs, black mission figs, Babcock peaches, and yellow plums. “Mr. Stein said you can grow anything in National City,” she says. “He’s right. It’s a pity the city’s built on top of such rich soil.”

On Saturdays, the farm’s open to the public, from 10 am to 2 pm. And plenty of children come, partly to earn community service hours. “We give the kids chores,” says Lori. “That includes scrubbing laundry on a washboard. And guess what? Boys love doing that way more than girls.”

And Chris’s ghost? The footfalls stopped after six months. “I guess old Mr. Stein decided I would take care of his house after all,” he says.

Comments
Sponsored

The latest copy of the Reader

Please enjoy this clickable Reader flipbook. Linked text and ads are flash-highlighted in blue for your convenience. To enhance your viewing, please open full screen mode by clicking the icon on the far right of the black flipbook toolbar.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Southern California Asks: 'What Is Vinivia?' Meet the New Creator-First Livestreaming App

Next Article

Pie pleasure at Queenstown Public House

A taste of New Zealand brings back happy memories
Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

This Week’s Reader This Week’s Reader