The Peninsula School

A bride dead under mysterious circumstances. A grand mansion built at great cost and then abandoned.

The legend begins here and then twists and turns into a dark labyrinth of possibilities. The impressive structure built by San Mateo County Assemblyman James Coleman in 1880 cost $100,000 - a fantastic sum in those days. According to one nostalgic story it was to be a gift for his lovely wife, the former Carmelita Nuttall, a woman described by contemporary newspapers as "peerless in beauty and accomplishments."

The mansion was nearing completion when a tragic event occurred that cast a somber shadow over the place for more than a hundred years. Coleman returned from a business trip to the San Francisco hotel suite that he shared with Carmelita. Though it was 5 a.m., the dutiful young wife rose from bed and proceeded to unpack his bags. Somehow, as she was removing a gun from his valise, Carmelita accidentally shot herself.

It's said that the distraught bridegroom never set foot in the Peninsula palace that only just been completed. The house changed hands several times over the years, no one lingering long. In 1906, a young woman is said to have ended her life there, hurling herself headlong down a steep stairway.

When the founders of the Peninsula School purchased the mansion in 1925, they acquired a resident ghost as well. Almost from the beginning Carmelita Coleman was a loved (and feared) member of the school community. The romantic tradition of her tenancy has grown with the years, sparked by some very vivid experiences.

Yesterday's Victorian elegance has been replaced by today's space age funk but the legend of Carmelita is still very real. For more than fifty years, there have been stories of shimmering lights, unexplained footsteps and pets that refused to enter the building. Generations of children have told of glimpsing the wraithlike figure of a woman dressed in green. Some say the woman herself is green. Once an entire class saw the apparition.

Ken Coale, a former caretaker, remembers quite vividly being awakened at 3 a.m. one summer morning by the sound of footsteps. "I had been sleeping on a couch in the staff room," he recalls. "The footsteps seemed to come from the room just above me on the second floor. I lay there absolutely petrified." Finally Coale forced himself to track the sounds. They grew louder and louder as he climbed the stairs.

Then just as he reached the landing a door opened before him. He entered and the door closed behind him. The room from which the footsteps had seemingly come was empty. The only window was closed. Opening it, Coale looked down. It was a forty foot drop to the ground below and there was no indication of anyone having taken that exit. The house was quiet now. Whoever or whatever had been there was gone.