Clovis, California is the home of the 8000 square foot Wolfe Manor.  Located at the base of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the Wolfe Manor of Clovis is considered the most haunted location on the entire West Coast.  Often called the Black Hole Hotel, so many people have entered the Manor, never to leave again.  During its most active periods, the Wolfe Manor of Clovis averaged at least one death per day.

The mansion has a dark history.  The manor was originally built as a family home by Anthony Andriotti in 1922.  Unfortunately, after working so hard and raising a family, they lost the home in the Great Depression.  It sat vacant until 1935 when it became the Hazelwood Sanitarium, housing and treating patients with terminal illnesses.  It was purchased in 1942 and renamed the Clovis Sanitarium.

The mansion housed some of the most violent patients.  Multiple murders occurred by patients killing other patients, many by strangulation.  Additionally, the mansion was home to multiple patient suicides.  One of the most gruesome included a patient who ripped a fire extinguisher off the wall and placing the hose into his mouth.  He asphyxiated when the contents exploded into his mouth and throat.

(images:youkilledme1st/flickr)

Thousands of other patients died in the sanitarium due to poor conditions and abuse.  Reports show that each nurse was responsible for over twenty patients.  Patients were commonly chained to beds, showers, and toilets.  They were living naked in the hallways and crowded into rooms where they were often ignored or forgotten.  The average employee lasted only about thirty days in the fifty years the sanitariums housed patients due to the extreme stress and horrifying conditions.  The unfortunate patients who perished in the sanitarium were housed in the basement until the local coroner could make the trek out into the country.  The room they were stored was called the pink room.  Often there were as many as eight or ten bodies in the pink room.

Before 1954, the Clovis Sanitarium mostly treated patients with tuberculosis, but in 1943, administrators built a special section onto the mansion to treat individuals with mental illness.  The conditions and lack of care were aggravated substantially by the addition of the new wing.  Employees were stretched even further and patients suffered as a result.  The facility was finally closed in 1992.  The City of Clovis had made multiple attempts to have the building shut down and destroyed.

Todd Wolfe is the current owner.  He claims he never believed in ghosts until he bought the building.  He currently runs the Clovis Sanitarium as Wolfe Mansion, a haunted attraction.  Gathering some attention, he had a number of psychics and paranormal researchers interested in touring the facility.  He allowed them until 2004 when activity seemed to skyrocket out of control.

The hospital wings were demolished in 2007, leaving just the main building.  Wolfe describes commonly hearing people running through the kitchen and hearing walking on floors above him- even when he is the only one in the mansion.  Even more creepy, he often hears the scratching of walkers above him along the floor, as patients from long past continue their familiar routes across the facility.

(images:dabrantes/flickr)

Others have described hearing laughing and the sounds of children, possibly from the original Andriotti family.  People describe seeing black entities seeming to rush them and having apparitions appear on video.  Many have had air breezes and even seen a couple wandering around the mansion.  Researchers have problems with electronics, including malfunctioning and errors.  EMF readers utilized by paranormal researchers have wild readings, even though the mansion has no source of electricity.

People have described being pushed, shoved, or had their hair pulled.  Doors have opened or shut in front of people, with no apparent source.  House workers have quit after being harassed by unseen sources or having their work thwarted.  Unfortunately, Wolfe Mansion visitors are not the only ones affected by the current house guests.  The local 911 center reports getting calls from the property, even though there has been no phone service there for years.