Скачать или смотреть The Neff House and The Betz Sphere | FrdmXplr

The Neff Family out here with ‪@CBParanormal‬

Nestled in the woods on Fort George Island, the Neff House was constructed by local architect Mellen Clark Greeley, once considered to be the “Dean of Jacksonville Architects”. Greeley was hired by Chicago businessman Nettleton Neff, to design his winter home located on the side of Mount Cornelia, the highest point in Duval County. Designed in the Tudor-Revival style, Greeley considered it his “most unique home” but not his favorite. The home’s most notable feature is the circular entry tower with its semi-circular wrought iron balcony above the front door. Unfortunately, Neff never saw the completion of his “castle-like” home due to a series of unfortunate events.

In August 1926, six months into the construction of the house, his wife Kathleen Katherine Scudder Neff died in a fire that destroyed their summer home in Roaring Brook, Michigan. The fire was believed to have been started when a gas stove within the home exploded. Nearly two years later, Neff’s 21-year-old son William Wayne Neff went missing from Harvard University. His body was found two weeks later having hung himself from an apple tree outside of Stonington, Connecticut.

On April 7, 1931, Nettleton Neff committed suicide after locking himself in his office in the Railway Exchange building in Chicago, having shot himself in his right temple with a .45 caliber revolver. His house in Duval County sat vacant for many years following his death until Kenneth Merrill, of Merrill Stevens Ship Building Co., the St. Johns River Shipbuilding Co., and the Merrill Dynamite Co., purchased the home as a holiday retreat for the Merrill family. The Merrills owned the home until 1967 when they sold it to the Betz family.

The Betz Sphere
The Betz family was the first to occupy the home year-round. Antoine Betz, a marine biologist, and Gerri Betz, the president of a real estate and land development company, resided here with two of their six children. They added a kitchen wing, a garage, and a swimming pool, and had the house rewired.

On March 27, 1974, Antoine, Gerri, and their 21-year-old son Terry were inspecting the damage done by a small brush fire near their property when they stumbled upon a shiny metal ball with a small triangle imprinted on its surface sitting in the grass. Thinking it was an old cannonball, the Betz took it back to their home. Shortly after, Terry was playing his guitar one day when the family reported that the ball began resonating with the music, like a tuning fork. According to an article in the Jacksonville Journal by Sandy Stricklen, one could hear “organ music in the seven-level, 21-room mansion, but no organ was found in the house; mysterious phone call… voices and banging doors were heard in the house; glass from closed cupboards would sometimes crash onto the floor”.

The Betz family came to the conclusion that this all stemmed from the ball and contacted the newspapers seeking help in identifying the strange artifact. The Jacksonville Journal sent photographer Lou Egner to the home. Once there, he reported that Mrs. Betz told him to put the sphere on the floor where it proceeded to roll away and then stop. It turned on its own and rolled to the right four feet away from where it stopped. Then it turned again and rolled to the left about eight feet, made a big arc, and came back at his feet.

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