When Bryan Nohl and Christine Dreifus bought The Cutting Horse
steakhouse two years ago, they were told by the previous owners
that the fine-dining establishment in San Juan Bautista was a haven
for haunts. Since then, they have come to suspect that unearthly
spirits do indeed dwell in their restaurant.
When Bryan Nohl and Christine Dreifus bought The Cutting Horse steakhouse two years ago, they were told by the previous owners that the fine-dining establishment in San Juan Bautista was a haven for haunts. Since then, they have come to suspect that unearthly spirits do indeed dwell in their restaurant.
Located on the town’s historic main street on the site where an infamous hangman tree once stood back in the 19th century, the eatery just might serve as a portal to the paranormal realm.
During Nohl and Dreifus’s first Christmas running The Cutting Horse, a little girl named Britney came in with her parents. The family had recently moved to San Juan Bautista and so was unlikely to know much about its history, Dreifus said.
“The restaurant was completely decked out with lights and trees and when she went through the door, the lights flickered,” she said. “When she walked in, she refused to sit on the right side of the restaurant. And she didn’t want to go to the restroom.”
When Britney was asked why she was behaving so unusually, she replied, “Because Deanna is here.” Dreifus asked who Deanna was and the child said, “The ghost.”
Dreifus went back into the kitchen and asked the chef if he knew the name of the restaurant’s ghost. “Deanna,” he replied.
Local legend says that Deanna once ran a brothel from the upstairs section of the building located 307 Third St. in the mission city. The woman became engaged to Antoine Taix, a prominent French gentleman who in 1908 built the Romanesque-style building The Cutting Horse is now located in. According to the Images of America book “San Juan Bautista” by Joseph McMahon and Carla Hendershot, Taix was one-time mayor of the village and also served as the director of the community bank. The building originally served as a general merchandise store.
“The old (restaurant) owners had told us the story,” Dreifus said. “Deanna was the madam of the brothel. On her wedding day, in her wedding dress, she fell down the stairs and passed away. It’s said that she didn’t want to marry the gentleman, so she’s a happy ghost because she didn’t have to get married.”
Stories abound of the mischievous ghost. The previous owners once found themselves doused with water by a fire hose – and then saw the hose reattach itself to the wall. Some customers have claimed to see her standing on the stairwell, often with a skeleton face surrounded by blonde hair. Last January, a customer took a digital picture of her husband in the restaurant and when she analyzed the photograph on her computer, she saw a strange orb in the picture, Dreifus said. “Inside the orb, you can kind of make out a skeleton face.”
Deanna is often called “The Lady in White,” and on a wall on top of the steep stairs upon which she fell, an artist many years ago painted her full-length portrait. The mural seems to suggest a pale-faced woman emerging out of the darkness.
Neither Nohl or Dreifus have actually seen any ghosts in their restaurant, but they have experienced strange incidents that seem to suggest that the spirits are indeed trying to make their beyond the grave presence known.
“We’ve seen some weird stuff,” she insisted. One time, the two owners heard a loud crash in the banquet room and went to investigate and found “absolutely nothing” had fallen, Dreifus said. Another time while cleaning the floors, Nohl put a mop in a bucket. “He was doing something else and the mop handle was swishing back and forth as if someone was moving it in the water,” she added.
Adding to the restaurant’s reputation for spirit presence, a single chandelier in the restaurant will sometimes start shaking without any explainable cause. And then there’s the phantom phone.
“We witnessed this happen twice,” Dreifus said. “We heard a phone ringing. It’s like an old-fashioned phone ring. It was in the corner of our bar, and the phone was ringing, ringing, ringing. We kept trying to follow the noise to try to find the phone, and then it would stop. And then it would ring again. There were people sitting in the restaurant, and they asked us to get the phone ring. The closest place we could get to it where it was the loudest was in the fireplace.”
Cutting Horse customers who know nothing about the legend of the ghost have described their own personal close encounters with Deanna.
“It’s usually women customers,” Dreifus said. “They feel her presence and stuff going down the hallway to the women’s restroom. There’s two mirrors in the women’s restroom and they’ll see a shadow in the mirror. And sometimes they try to get out of the restroom and they have a hard time pushing open the door as if there’s a resistance – as if someone’s trying to hold the door shut.”
So legendary has the story of The Cutting Horse hauntings become that several “ghost hunters” have come to the restaurant to investigate. One female ghost hunter claims to have seen strange shadows move in the halls, indicating a presence. The ghost hunters believe that there are four ghosts present in the restaurant: Deanna, a young girl and two men.
Paul Dale Roberts, the general manager of a Sacramento-based firm called Haunted Paranormal Investigations International, has visited The Cutting Horse as well as other buildings in San Juan Bautista and believes there might be ghosts dwelling throughout the entire community.
“Because of the historical aspect of the town, it has so much history, there’s probably a lot of residual haunting activity there,” he said. “That would be like (spirit) energy that’s actually imprinted in the environment.”
Roberts did not actually see any ghosts during his visit. He took photographs to analyze them for ghost “orb” activity and also made electronic recordings to try to pick up “voice phenomena” but his efforts did not provide any conclusive evidence of specter activity.
Roberts conducted several interviews in which customers of The Cutting Horse related their own paranormal experiences.
“The interviews were consistent of either they witnessed a little girl apparition or they saw an apparition of a woman with a flowing dress,” he said. “The woman with the flowing dress is rumored to have been a lady of the night and some of the witnesses claim she has a skeletal face. With so many reliable and credible witnesses of paranormal activities at The Cutting Horse, I would have to say there is something unusual that is occurring at the site. But further investigation is necessary.”
The restaurant’s haunted reputation helps to tempt customers in for a meal or drink at the bar and see if they might personally experience any manifestations of ghostly apparitions for themselves. And tonight, on Halloween, Nohl and Dreifus will provide a spook-oriented dinner to celebrate the holiday and to toast the spirit of Deanna and any other phantoms that might roam among the diners.
“It’s going to go on until 1 o’clock in the morning,” she said. “There’s a a costume contest. Any kind of ghost or monster that are in the movies, we’re going to do a whole Hollywood theme and give awards to the best costume.”
For some experts on the paranormal, San Juan Bautista is spirit central for the South Valley. If the stories are to be believed, the mission city has a horde of haunts inhabiting many of its historic buildings. And The Cutting Horse just might be the contender for having the most romantic of the poltergeists in town.
As for Nohl and Dreifus, they say they aren’t afraid of Deanna.
“She’s a friendly ghost,” Dreifus said. “I’m sort of counting that she’s watching out for us.”
