 Edith Little Edie Bouvier Beale (qv) claimed that the house was  haunted by the ghost of a sea captain, who used to climb a ladder  into her room for midnight trysts. She also claimed the house was  haunted by the ghosts of a woman and her daughter, who were the  original residents of the house. However, the first resident of the  house was Mrs. F. Stanhope Phillips, the daughter of the first  editor of the Detroit Free Press, and she had no children.