Nevada Focus: Strange happenings in old hospital

Thursday, May 28, 1998 | 4:03 a.m.

Perhaps that accounts for the stories of strange happenings in what is now the Logan Professional Building, formerly the Carson Valley Hospital.

Some say the late-night door slamming or other noises that tenants have heard over the years may be the ghost of a popular nurse, May Kenney, who cared for babies and children at the hospital.

"We have definitely heard things here, but not really that often," says Noel Manoukian, who bought the building in 1985 and whose law office is in the hospital's old nursery.

"One day, about seven years ago, I was working late downstairs and the sheriff's deputy stopped by around midnight because he noticed the front door was open," Manoukian said. "I thanked him and went back to work. I had checked all the doors upstairs and they were definitely locked. Around 1 a.m., I heard a door slam upstairs. I called my wife Louise right then, told her I was coming home and left."

Terri Rothi Miller, Manoukian's associate who has her office down the hall in the old operating room, said she too has heard strange noises while working late.

"I have heard the sound of someone coughing when I've been here late at night," she said. "It was a friendly cough, though, almost as if it was telling me, 'You're not alone - I'm here."'

"We want our clients to know this has only happened at night," Manoukian said with a smile.

The two-story Gardnerville hospital was built as a sanitarium in 1914 by Dr. E.H. Hawkins. It housed an operating room, scrub room, nursery, kitchen and several hospital rooms both upstairs and down. The building served the valley as a hospital for 10 years.

The brick building, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, was a boarding house from 1930 to 1946. The first tenants were single women teachers who taught at Douglas County High School across the street.

From 1946 to 1958, the house was a private residence. After that it was empty for 20 years.

In 1978, Carson Valley accountant Glenn Logan and his wife E-Ann bought the deteriorated building at auction - and Glen later had an experience or two with doors slamming at night.

"He said he knew the doors upstairs were locked, but they would slam shut occasionally, which always brought him home immediately," E-Ann said.

"I think it was meant to be that we have that building," she added. "We didn't have much money, so the night before the auction, Glenn said, 'I hope it snows tonight so the California buyers can't get across the pass tomorrow.' The next morning, it had snowed."

After buying the dilapidated building, the Logans spent months restoring it.

"Looking back, I don't know how we did it," E-Ann said. "The neat thing was that while we were working on it, people would come in and hug us and thank us for saving it. There was one woman who was in town for a divorce and had to spend the six weeks waiting for it - she came by and worked with us every day because she just wanted to be a part of it."