The Message in the Haunted Mansion
Nancy Drew #122
San Francisco CA

                    Planted by PrincessLea on July 12, 2003 

Directions: Park near the intersection of Lake St. and Funston Ave. Enter the park near Mountain Lake (just at the end of Funston). Dogs are allowed on leash. For most of the walk, you will be following the Juan Bautista National Historical Trail.

This series is based on the Nancy Drew mystery story The Message in the Haunted Mansion. This particular adventure of Nancy's is set in San Francisco, at a Victorian mansion on California St., "near Golden Gate Park." There really aren't many Victorians in the stretch of California that is nearest to the park - mostly those would be over in the area by the Fillmore and towards downtown. So I chose this other park that is near to the imaginary area described.

Nancy, Bess, George and Hannah are visiting Rose Green, who is refurbishing a Victorian mansion in San Francisco along with her niece Abby. They plan to make it into a Bed & Breakfast. There has been a series of accidents which have caused delays in the renovation. The group goes on a tour of San Francisco, ending up at a restaurant with photos of old San Francisco in the lobby. They learn of the legend of local actress Lizzie Applegate and how she fell in love with a bandit named El Diablo, and may even have been part of his stagecoach-robbing gang. Later in life, Lizzie had returned to San Francisco to act, open a hotel and write a play called The Bandit's Treasure. Later on, Bess is still hungry, so the girls go out to a Chinese Restaurant on the corner. It has a fireplace with a phoenix carved into the top of the mantel. Back at the mansion, Nancy hears a hissing noise and sees a ghost-like apparition out the window. Bess accidentally finds a key concealed in a bedpost. In the morning the group finds that some muffins that Hannah had cooked the night before have gone missing. Nancy, Bess and George help with the restoration by chipping paint off the woodwork. Nancy goes on top of the tower to straighten an iron bird ornament, but crashes through when the roof gives way. Nancy lands in an unfinished attic and finds a trap door to the house below. In the attic she finds a desk and uses the key Bess found in the bedpost to open the desk, where she finds letters, photos and playbills all belonging to Lizzie Applegate. Nancy believes that the mansion must originally have been Lizzie's hotel. Nancy goes to the public library to conduct research on the house. She discovers that the mansion was originally a hotel called The Golden Gardenia, belonging to E. Valdez. Hannah, Emily, Nancy, Bess and George have tea at the Queens Court at the Grand Hotel. Bess recounts the story of El Diablo and his gang holding up a stagecoach on Christmas Day. The group conjectures that E. Valdez might be Lizzie's married name. The group goes to dinner at the Chinese restaurant where they meet Mary's grandfather. He claims that his father was a cook at the house when it was a hotel, and identifies him in one of the old photos. He says his father always called the owner Lizzie, but he didn't know her last name. The next day, Nancy, Bess and George visit the California Express Company to conduct research on the stagecoach bandit El Diablo. They discover that his real name was Diego Valdez and that the $60,000 worth of gold he stole in the Christmas Day heist was never recovered. The girls go on a tour of Chinatown led by Mary, which winds up at the Phoenix Garden Restaurant, Mary's grandfather's establishment. He shows them pictures of Lizzie in her mansion, by a mantel with a phoenix on it - he explains that it is the same one that is now located in the other restaurant, but that it was originally part of the hotel. Back at the mansion, Nancy overhears Louis offering to buy the mansion from Rose and Abby, as a favor to them since it has become such a dangerous place. Rose refuses. George leans against a paneled wall and a secret door opens. The girls find a black painted safe in the niche behind the panel and manage to get it open. They find Lizzie and Diego's marriage certificate and Lizzie's journal and will which are proof that Diego survived the Christmas Day heist and the plans of the house, including the original location of the fireplace. The next day Nancy studies the spot where the fireplace mantel would originally have been and finds a patch of mismatched wood on the floor. Nancy chats with Louis and he mentions that Lizzie's treasure was made up of $60,000 in 1878 gold coins, and Nancy realizes that she never mentioned the value of Lizzie's stash and she becomes suspicious. Nancy reads an article that Louis is a known gold hunter, and Nancy realizes he is the culprit. Nancy figures out that Lizzie's gold must be hidden in the mansion at "the end of the rainbow" - the rainbow cast by the stained glass above the front door. It would shine down to where the onto the phoenix in the mantel originally would have been. Louis admits that he had been outbid in the purchase of the mansion and was causing accidents to get the ladies to sell to him, with Charlie the handyman as his accomplice. The courts are left to decide who gets Lizzie's treasure, but Rose is given the reward for recovery of the money. She also decides to reinstitute the hotel's name of The Golden Gardenia for her B&B.		The Key Clue: follow the path, going to your right, that takes you along the edge of Mountain Lake. Find the Juan Bautista De Anza ground plaque. Walk 30 steps ENE from the plaque and locate a piece of a log with woodpecker(?) holes on it. Take 6 steps at 240 to the hiding place in the tree. Rehide well, this box has gone missing a couple of times already.
		Continue on the path, and at the basketball platform, veer left onto the wood chip path. When this short trail re-meets the paved path, go left. Hannah's Muffins: when you reach the overpass, look behind the first corner footing on the left side.
		Continue on path and turn left at the "T" intersection. El Diablo: When you reach a clearing on the right, take 25 steps backwards to where some slender eucalyptus logs have fallen and are parallel to the path. Step over the logs and notice a small path between the trees. On your left will be 2 trees growing close together, one in front of the other. Look between them, under the leaves.
		Back on the path, a short ways after the clearing, opposite where the cyclone fencing (above the traffic) begins, make a U-turn onto the concrete path that heads uphill. This will merge onto Wyman Ave. - proceed straight. The Phoenix: just past #1809 is a damaged tree. Look inside the portion still attached to the ground.
		Go up the sandy hill behind you. At the top will be a path and you'll see a sign explaining the "sensitive habitat" of the area. Proceed along this path and take a left at the intersection (you'll see 4 short poles). At the End of the Rainbow: Down this path there is a huge cedar (?) tree on the left, near the remains of a concrete foundation. Look on the right side of the tree under some bark.
		Go around the fenced enclosure behind the tree by following the path on the left (you'll have to jump down at the short "wall"). Turn left onto the concrete path which will take you back to the houses on Wyman Ave. Turn right onto Wyman, and where it ends you will see a doorway in the cyclone fencing. Go through onto the residential block - this is 14th Ave. Proceed to the corner of Lake and turn left. 2 blocks ahead is the intersection of Funston and Lake where you began.

I hope that you enjoyed your adventure as an amateur sleuth. For more Nancy Drew-related letterboxing adventures, please go to my Nancy Drew letterboxing page.

For more information on the book and video game of The Message in the Haunted Mansion, please visit my Nancy Drew paperbacks web site.

Picture of The Golden Gardenia mansion courtesy of Her Interactive, Inc.

Box Status Reports

Date	Status
September 5, 2003	Checked all 5 boxes wioth Amanda from Seattle and Silent Doug - everything is intact! Changed "rainbow" clue so that it directs you to the cedar tree, which was previously misattributed as a eucalyptus - oops!
June 28, 2004	Mimulus reports all 5 boxes alive and well
September 23, 2004	The Kool Kats report Box #1 is missing - #2-5 all alive and well
December 18, 2004	Replanted Box #1 in a slightly different spot. RedSF and SF Momo recommend doing this series in the dark for a more haunting experience!
January 18, 2006	Conducted box maintenance and replaced box #1; removed all log books except the one in box #5 - you only need to stamp in once for the whole series. Box #3 El Diablo is almost inaccessible at this time as many of the eucalyptus in the grove have fallen down in the storms. However, the 2 trees that protect the box are still standing - sorry I can't describe them any better to help figure out which ones they are. The box has a brick on top of it to mark its place.