Curse of the Normandie Inn

All right this is really "Mystery of the Normandie Inn Pt. 2." I didn't think of "curse" until the other day. Otherwise I would've used it for the first post. I like "curse" better.

After my first post I was talking to some people about the place. They all seem to think (1) it's cursed; and (2) it's older than the 1920's.

A lot of people have heard that the Normandie Inn is cursed. That everyone who owns it has tragedy strike them or their families, etc. They've heard about the haunting, too.

I'm told that in the 70's and 80's the place was a hangout for bikers. I don't know why. Seems like a pretty gay place for bikers to hang out.

Supposedly some bikers who liked to go there would end up dying, either in the area or some place else. I guess the others caught on that the place was bad luck and stopped going there. Then the place became a mainstream restaurant again until it shut its doors in late '03.

And look some interior decorators bought the place in 2004. When the contractors were ready to go in and renovate, the two knight statues were stolen. Five years later the new owners still haven't been able to move in. Is this the curse at work?

Also everyone I talked to thinks the building is much older than was reported in the LIBN article, which said it dates back to the 1920's. But another LIBN article (May 27, 1996--not available online for free), a restaurant review actually, puts it back in the 1800's:

The curious-looking stucco building at the intersection of Lakeland and Smithtown Aves, in Bohemia has been a landmark site since the late 1800s. Here, the oldest building in Bohemia once stood, providing a stopping off point for, so the lore goes, rum runners on a NYC to Montauk run, and Manhattan, Chicago, and LA celebrities to drink and dine during prohibition.

Besides, think of the timelines. It was supposedly built as a house for a Czech baron in the 1920's, but it was also a speakeasy during prohibition, and Rudolph Valentino slept there?

Well Prohibition was from 1919 to 1933. And Rudolph Valentino died in 1926. The timelines don't make sense. If it was built in the 1920's as a residence, Czechy boy sure didn't live there long. So it's probably a lot older than that. I suppose somebody could pull a building permit or certificate of occupancy from the Town of Islip and check.

On another note, for a while Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple used to play Renaissance music there. Below are some pics showing the interior of the place with Blackmore and his band. They are supposedly from November, 2000. The hot-ass blonde is Blackmore's wife.

Normandie Inn, the mystery deepens.