SAE_pg 6-7_10-13.indd - Wolf`s Museum of Mystery

Wolf’s Museum of Mystery
St, Augustine’s attraction of the weird & unusual
A Gilded Age House Museum
built by Franklin W. Smith in 1883.
Replicates a portion of the
Alhambra Palace in Granada, Spain.
View the magnificent architecture
and original art & antique collection
while learning its 130 year history.
Audio guided tours in
English, Spanish & French.
First you must picture a gaily painted
wagon pulling up in town square or the
red-and-white striped tents of the traveling
circus. Meanwhile, all over town – fishwives,
the baker and the candlestick maker – drop
mundane tasks to heed the summons of the
guy with a handlebar mustache and sidekick
monkey stepping forward to crank on a slightly
out-of-tune grinder organ as accompaniment
for the booming voice to announce: Ladies
and gentlemen – step right up to see the most
unbelievable, the most amazing …
People now surf the web to view those
things, but in a charming and seemingly typical 1890s Victorian two story at 46 Charlotte
Street, local Attorney Wolfgang Von Mertz and
his wife Ali live amongst a collection of the
strange that would warm the heart of those
most prolific purveyors of weird like Jim Rose,
P.T. Barnum or even Robert Ripley himself.
“I give credit to those guys for allowing
people like me to create a Mystery Museum.
Ripley did things that no other person in his
era could and opened up the globe’s treasures
to the everyday lay person,” said Von Mertz,
whose Nordic blue eyes start to dance at the
mention of the once not-to-be-missed travelling shows that drew huge crowds to view
things like contortionists and bearded ladies.
A native of North Dakota and youngest of
eight, the Georgetown-educated partner in the
state wide law firm of Wilkins Von Mertz has
Germanic-Midwestern roots that show through
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83 King Street
with the shoulder-length blonde hair and breezy
small-town boy manners, which are decidedly
unlawyerish. “My law partner Jeffery Wilkins
and I like to think of ourselves as the anti-lawyers. We live and work amongst
them but really don’t like lawyers
at all,” says Wolf. Wife Ali is a
petite, dark-haired beauty with a
shy smile who is herself a paralegal. The couple’s all-American
good looks and well-traveled
banter as we tour their newly
opened “Wolf’s Museum of Mystery” has them appearing more
like surfers or the pop-art crowd
than a former Air Force JAG attorney and wife.
“It was a dream of mine to
construct a place that appealed
to all the senses so we painted
ceiling to floor; filled each room
with a different aroma and blasted 1950’s Midway sounds off
the balcony. I have long imagined
a place where people could not
only buy the type of things they
have seen at Ripley’s but seek legal advice as
well - A place where you could get a shrunken
head and the legal answers to make it happen.”
Actually, the urbane 39-year old gives off no
creepy-dude vibes, even when discussing his
exotic collecting habits over the past 20 years
- like the exchange of letters for a brief period
with celebrity mass murderer Charles Manson.
“I thought it would be great if I could get
his (music) album signed for the collection.
However, after a brief exchange … He wrote
back, ‘I don’t see you as you but only through
me and I think Wolf only sees himself.’ I think
I’m probably the only lawyer in the world who
was told off by Chucky Manson.”
Wolfgang (and yes - that really is his
given name) says he’s not really sure why he
began collecting objects that would seem truly
bizarre to most but asserts many of his interests are to items with “energy.” “The purchase
of an innocuous Ouija board can quickly spiral
into such things as ritual items used by ancient
tribal leaders who performed human sacrifice
- It’s an exceedingly slippery-slope.”
But historical significance is critical and
whether it be his Egyptian Falcon mummy
– or his 1890 embalming table, the Mystery
Museum definitely has all the right components
to produce a reaction from those who dare
enter it.
Wolf says his ‘taxidermy phase’ last year
has made for items that are among his most
controversial. This would include “Precious,”
Wolf with Denali pet wolf
a still born elephant, and “Jenkins”, the bespectacled giraffe, and while wearing a “lawyer
suit” and reading a book on War (Good God,
y’all…) shows the curator’s quirky humor.
One visitor favorite is the (seemingly) smiling
baboon having a beer. Wolf is quick to point
out that every animal in the museum did pass
from natural causes and all were acquired from
a zoo taxidermist. “I have never hunted or even
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OCTOBER 2013
St. Augustine Entertainer
IN THE
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shot a gun but collecting exotic taxidermy is
simply part and parcel to dealing in oddities.”
More (dark) stars of the collection include:
•
A complete set of six signed paintings by
“the Doctor of Death” Jack Kevorkian
•
Four authentic turn-of-the-century Chinese Hell Scrolls
•
An original Hitler oil painting recovered
from the Reich Chancellery after the fall of
Berlin
•
John Wayne Gacy’s personally owned
Bible complete with hand written passages
•
An Asian “Burping of the Dead” bib used
in Hindu cremation ceremonies
However, there are also Objects d’ art that
can be appreciated by anyone to include: a vintage Chinese “doctor’s lady” carved from bone
and once used by doctors to discreetly diagnose upper class women; and several pieces
purchased from a former African National
Geographic Director that include an authentic
1815 starred “Napoleon as Caesar” Brazier
table which may have be owned by the general
himself. An 1890 Egyptian Sarcophagus was
a movie prop from Abbott and Costello’s “The
Mummy.”
What makes the shop truly amazing: not
only can you see some of the rarest items in
the world but every item is for sale. “I wanted
to create one of the rarest shops in the United
States and where else to do it then the most
haunted city!”
Wolf said he is particularly interested
in trade with other high end collectors. “This
is one way I’ve found some of my very best
pieces.”
One item that will be arriving special
delivery via A&E’s Shipping Wars and just in
time for the museum’s October “Monsters
and Madmen Exhibit” is a 1938 iron lung being delivered all the way from North Dakota.
“It’s all original and was just discovered in a
boarded up old pulley elevator system where
it was hidden for 70-plus years. We’re pretty
excited about it.”
While the museum opened its doors to
the public in September, the Monsters and
Madmen Exhibit is a special feature running
October 21-31 with eleven themes over eleven
nights. There is a $10 Exhibit admission price
on these days (daily admission is $5), but
each ticket is good for a $5 rebate towards
anything in the museum. Advise: bring your
checkbook as these are not your everyday
tourist trade items. Also, ask about renting the
upstairs “Horror Room” (complete with haunted bar!) for three-hour horror HD movie sessions – with fresh popcorn and soda provided.
Tickets to the Monsters and Madmen exhibit
can be purchased at the museum website at
wolfsmuseumofmystery.com.
Directly South
of The Plaza
“The Nation’s Oldest Street”
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Wolf, wife Ali with Robert Englund (Freddy Kruger
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St. Augustine Entertainer
OCTOBER 2013
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