Ravenswood Manor is the setting of Phantom Manor in Disneyland Paris' Frontierland.
Description[]
Ravenswood Manor is a hillside mansion overlooking the Rivers of the Far West in Thunder Mesa, Arizona. The mansion appears to be three-stories tall and is located atop Boot Hill, the town's cemetery. Ravenswood Manor is also located atop a series of catacombs, and is nearby the collapsed, "ghost town" of Phantom Canyon. Ravenswood Manor itself is abandoned and haunted by various spirits, lead by the mansion's late owner Henry Ravenswood AKA The Phantom while tormenting the trapped soul of his daughter, Mélanie Ravenswood.
Features[]
- Attic:
- Foyer:
- Gazebo: A gazebo located outside of the mansion.
- Grand Staircase: The grand staircase has a staircase connecting to the mansion's upper levels, in-front of a large window.
- Great Hall: The Great Hall is a large ballroom with a pipe-organ at one end and a fireplace at the other. After the mansion became haunted, this room was haunted with the spirits of the would-be guests of Mélanie Ravenswood's doomed wedding.
- Mélanie's Boudoir: This room was the boudoir of the late Melanie Ravenswood, containing her vanity, clock, letters and victrola. The boudoir also connected to the outside of the mansion.
- Music Room: The music room was decorated with a piano and multiple portraits/photographs.
- Portrait Corridor: This corridor is connected to the Secret Room and is decorated with portraits of Henry Ravenswood, Melanie Ravenswood, a cowboy, and the Flying Dutchman.
- Séance chamber: A chamber decorated with various griffin sculptures. The chamber was used by clairvoyant Madame Leota to summon spirits.
- Secret Room: The, "Secret Room" is an octagonal room connected to the foyer, decorated with portraits of Melanie Ravenswood with the lovers she had in her corruptible, mortal state. The room has the supernatural ability to stretch out.
History[]
Background[]
Origins[]
Ravenswood Manor was created around the late 1840s by Big Thunder Mining Company founder and Thunder Mesa Founding Father, Henry Ravenswood. Henry lived here with his wife Martha, servants Anna and Jasper Jones (the former of whom he had an affair with) and is where he kept his daughter Melanie locked away from the world. Using his wealth and influence, Henry became a serial-killer who murdered a man outside his manor in a rigged duel, and four men in the 1850s who courted his daughter; these consisted of Mark Twain steamboat Captain Rowan D. Falls who he sent off a waterfall, lumber-mill owner Sawyer Bottom whom he sawed in half with a buzz-saw on a log, oil-field owner Barry Claude who Henry brought into the woods to have him fed to grizzly bears, and Big Thunder Mining Company explosives provider Ignatius "Iggy" Knight whom Henry left in a cavern of the mountain rigged to explode.
Doomed Wedding[]
In the year 1860, the Spirit of Big Thunder caused a massive earthquake to hit Thunder Mesa. This earthquake collapsed a portion of the town into a canyon, killing everyone within; including Henry and Martha. However, those who died within the earthquake became undead, with Henry's ghost returning to Ravenswood Manor to murder her newest lover in the rafters and trap her within the house where she herself died. In the years to come, the mansion became nicknamed, "Phantom Manor", and the collapsed portion of the town, "Phantom Canyon".
Mélanie and her lover Jake planned to marry within Ravenswood Manor's great hall before leaving Thunder Mesa forever. This was interrupted by Henry's ghost to lure Jake away into the attic where he hanged him to death. With her groom dead, Mélanie was left at the alter in a melancholy state. Even when the guests left, Mélanie stayed either unwilling or unable to leave the mansion. Eventually, she died within the manor's halls.
Phantom Manor[]
The ghost of Henry Ravenswood became a malevolent spirit haunting the manor, known simply as, "The Phantom". Other spirits were active in the manor including Madame Leota, ghostly attendants of Mélanie's wedding, a corpse hound, and the undead corpse victims of the earthquake who inhabited the ghost town of, "Phantom Canyon". Various individuals disappeared within the manor, presumably due to being murdered by the Phantom; the first notable instance being Milo "One-Eye" Jones who disappeared in the manor after robbing the Big Thunder Mining Company. These incidents resulted in the Town Council of Thunder Mesa closing off access to the mansion in 1884.
Mayor Artemus L. Hector and Sheriff Will Ketchum sent various parties to investigate Phantom Manor. The first group left the mansion, screaming and half-mad, while the second consisted of several explorers and adventurers who vanished within; presumably being killed by Henry. The final group consisted of eastern United States sceptics who, "Debunked" the paranormal ongoings of the mansion as hallucinations. After this, the town council reopened the mansion with Henry himself appearing in the human form of an elderly man, claiming to represent the Big Thunder Mining Company.
Development history[]
Ravenswood Manor is Phantom Manor's analogue to the Haunted Mansion. The mansion was originally going to have a more expansive history with more characters in its backstory.
In 2019, the attraction underwent various changes including new portraits (some of which replaced those which were just repurposed from the Haunted Mansion).
Appearances[]
Frontierland[]
The Lucky Nugget Saloon[]
Ravenswood Manor appears on a mural of Thunder Mesa.
Phantom Manor[]
Phantom Manor is the setting of this attraction.
Rivers of the Far West[]
The riverboats pass by Phantom Manor.
Thunder Mesa Daily Messenger[]
This newspaper has had stories concerning the manor.
Trivia[]
- The manor resembles the Bates house from Psycho (1960) though according to Imagineers, this was inadvertent.
Gallery[]
External links[]
- Ravenswood Manor on the Haunted Mansion wiki.