Night of the Dancing Dead

MYSTERY CASTLE OF THE DESERT Near South Mountain in Phoenix, a father's last gift keeps on giving

In 1948, a writer and a photographer from Life magazine sought treasure in the Arizona desert-and found it. Awaiting them at the base of South Mountain was a peculiar fortress they'd been hearing about, crafted from colorful rocks, flagstone, discarded materials and homemade mortar. Outside, balconies and towers with mismatched windows caught distant views of a budding Phoenix. Inside, the 18 cavernous rooms and dungeon, complete with a trapdoor, were filled to the railroad tie-rafters with dust-laden knickknacks, scraps and strange junk.

Stranger still were the people they encountered: a mother and daughter, standing in front of a homemade sign offering $1 tours of the Mystery Castle. The ensuing Life article told of Boyce Luther Gulley, an aspiring architect. Gulley lived with his wife, Fran, and daughter, Mary Lou, in Seattle, Washington, until he contracted tuberculosis in 1929, when Mary Lou was just a toddler. Not wanting to burden his family, he disappeared. For years, the devastated mother and daughter presumed their errant patriarch to be dead. Many years later, bitter word came that, indeed, Boyce had died, but not right away and not from tuberculosis. He'd shaken TB in Arizona and built his daughter a castle, but died of cancer before he could show it to her. Upon discovering that her father had left her a castle, Mary Lou, then a teenager, charted a one-way course to the desert, like Boyce himself had done. She and her mother would spend the rest of their days overlooking the Valley of the Sun, while overseeing what would become a popular tourist destination.

Imagine a historic home tour, a secondhand store, an antiques shop, a museum and an Old West movie studio all rolled into one, and you can begin to conjure the experience of the Mystery Castle. Inside the black iron gates, the soul of an artist whispers at every

when you go

Location: 800 E. Mineral Road, Phoenix.

Getting There: Take Central Avenue south to South Mountain. Turn left onto Mineral Road, just before the entrance to the South Mountain Park/Preserve, and continue to the castle.

Hours: Tours, Thursday through Saturday, 11 A.M. to 4 P.M., October through mid-June, depending on weather.

Fees: $5.

Travel Advisory: Only the main part of the castle (Mary Lou's living quarters) is equipped with air conditioning. Depending on the season, the rest of the castle can produce extremes of hot and cold. Dress appropriately, wear sunscreen and bring water. Tours may be contingent on Mary Lou's health. Call in advance.

Additional Information: (602) 268-1581.

Turn. Despite its architectural defiance, the maroontrimmed castle, much like its inhabitants, is in harmony with everything around it-so much so that it almost hides in plain sight. Inset with a hodgepodge of story-rich tiles, colorful glass and unusual trinkets, the pale stones are stacked into fairytale shapes, each designed to maximize daylight, shadow and stunning views. The castle stands not just as a bastion of Boyce Luther Gulley's creativity-it's a testament to his frugal genius. That 1948 Life magazine story boosted the fledgling roadside attraction to "must see" status. But the whole story is best told by Mary Lou herself-not just during the daily castle tours that the octogenarian still helps conduct, but also in her 1952 book titled, My Mystery Castle. What began as a diary ultimately became a Mark Twain Award-winning memoir.

Against the many elements, especially local landowners, working against the Gulley women. He helped Mary Lou grow a thick skin by teaching her to shoot a rifle and to stand her ground.

The combination of lots of misery and little money, however, made Mary Lou consider shooting her gift horse of an inheritance in the mouth.

But her mother encouraged the damsel in distress to persevere. An enterprising lady, Fran decided to turn their new home into a tourist attraction to make ends meet.

"Fran was the idealist and dreamer, and I was the child of hard earth. It was she who viewed the Castle with the eyes of an artist's family," Mary Lou wrote in her book. Fran once told her, "I have a psychic feeling it will grow on you."

It didn't just grow on her. Today, Mary Lou is synonymous with her father's opus. "I think down deep inside that I would have stayed no matter what because this was all I had of my father. I hardly knew him," she says.

Boyce Luther Gulley built the Mystery Castle, and ever since its rightful heir assumed the throne, people have come to experience the story for themselves.

"I just wrote it like I lived it," says the feeble but feisty and funny Mary Lou. In the castle's main house, she sits amid her treasures of stuffed animals, priceless family heirlooms, a "pet rock" collection, and portraits of both her and her father, thumbing the well-worn pages of her book. "It's the way I felt about things."

"I like to write about what I know," says Mary Lou. "I think that's why I got the award for [the book]-because it was true."

Her book, which inspired a 1999 Emmy award-winning documentary, has been out of print for the past two decades. But Mary Lou, who has arranged for her historic landmark to live on through a foundation after she's gone, hopes the humorous and gifted account of her extraordinary life as a desert "princess" will find its way to a new generation of readers very soon. Publishers are considering a reprint, and movie studios are pondering a film, which could turn the South Mountain sight into a goldmine. In the mean-time, the priceless Mary Lou Gulley and her Mystery Castle keep gaining interest. All Now, with the verdant sprawl of a golf course nip-ping at the property boundary and modern amenities just a few blocks away, it's hard to imagine the Mystery Castle once made for truly hard living, especially for two women who had previously been surrounded by the cool climate and creature comforts of Seattle. Then there were just creatures: coyotes, scorpions, spiders, centipedes and snakes, to name a few. The summers were scorching and the winters were bone-chilling. The castle was dirty and lacked running water, electricity and plumbing, though none of that seemed to deter the interest of conniving local landowners, law-yers and bandits making their way through the desert.

While Mary Lou had always dreamed of owning a castle, the reality proved much different. Her diary reflects a heartbroken but hopeful young woman who had to grow up quickly.

"Yeah, we had adult voices out here, believe me. Real loud ones sometimes," Mary Lou recalls with a chuckle. They'd shout: "Get off my property, or I'll shoot!"

Worried for Fran and Mary Lou's safety out in the savage West, Mary Lou's grandmother Florency Bradford dispatched longtime family friend Frank Herberger from Minnesota to the Mystery Castle. He helped run the place and served as a sort of protector Before she visited the Mystery Castle, JoBeth Jamison was told that Mary Lou Gulley had been ill, and her devoted helpers feared she wouldn't last much longer. That was more than two years ago, and it was JoBeth who, after spending an afternoon under the spell of Mary Lou's gifted storytelling and relentless humor, almost died-laughing. Jamison lives in Sedona.

Extraordinary lives, wonderful stories and a magical place provided intriguing subjects for Richard Maack's camera and an enjoyable couple of days wandering the grounds of the Mystery Castle. He lives in Phoenix.

Jerome jiggles and shines as Halloween Capital, Arizona

DEATH DANCES LIKE A MAN WITH SQUIRRELS IN HIS PANTS.

DEATH flails wild and unpredictable, shimmies rubberlegged and twitchy, hopelessly beyond the reach of the beat. Death, it occurs to me, couldn't carry Fred Astaire's cummerbund. THE PIRATE, however, not only cuts a rug, he carves it into eye-catching shapes. With a nurse and a cheerleader spinning around him in tight orbit, the pirate wheels across the dance floor with a sultry grace, the envy of everyone watching. PERCHED ON the dark cusp of Halloween, the town of Jerome bristles with Death, pirates, ghosts, ghouls, guys in dresses, wizards, witches, creepy (like there's another kind) clowns and hordes of other costumed revelers.