{"id":528,"date":"2026-06-15T13:05:45","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T13:05:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=528"},"modified":"2026-06-15T13:05:45","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T13:05:45","slug":"jackie-gleasons-paranormal-activity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=528","title":{"rendered":"Jackie Gleason\u2019s Paranormal Activity"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Here is one thing you probably know about Jackie Gleason, the famously \u201crotund comedian,\u201d to use an old Times<\/em> description: he was the star and guiding force of \u201cThe Honeymooners,\u201d the nineteen-fifties sitcom (and \u201cFlintstones\u201d template) that was spun off from a variety show he headlined in various incarnations from the early fifties into the seventies. Depending on your age, you may also have seen him as Minnesota Fats in the film \u201cThe Hustler.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Melanie Hamrick Is Still On Pointe<\/a><\/p>\n

Here are two things you probably don\u2019t know about Gleason: One, he was an avid reader with a lifelong interest in E.S.P., telekinesis, astral projection, clairvoyance, flying saucers\u2014the supernatural works\u2014and amassed a library of some three thousand volumes on these concerns. Two, in the late fifties, at the height of his fame, he built an extravagant circular house made of wood, marble, and glass which he variously called the Round House, the Round Rock, and the Mothership. The modernist home commands a woodsy eight and a half acres in Cortlandt Manor, a Westchester hamlet, and was more recently dubbed \u201cJackie Gleason\u2019s UFO-inspired party pad\u201d by a luxury life-style website when the property was listed for sale last summer. (Asking price: $5.5 million. Listing lede: \u201cOff-the-Charts Cool Cool Cool.\u201d)<\/p>\n

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Gleason lived in the Round House for only a few years, tiring of it quickly and then fobbing it off on his network, CBS, when he relocated his variety show to Miami Beach, in 1964. His widow donated his library to the University of Miami following his death, in 1987. But, on a recent morning, spooky books and saucerlike home were reunited, after a fashion, when Andrew Lampert, the author of a new book titled \u201cJackie Gleason: Library of the Paranormal,\u201d stood in front of the Round House. Despite the property\u2019s numerous \u201cNO TRESPASSING<\/em>\u201d signs, the owner was willing to give him a tour.<\/p>\n

Lampert\u2019s book is part of a series of monographs that he and a partner, Christine Burgin, publish, devoted to, in his words, \u201cidiosyncratic people\u201d and \u201cniche corners.\u201d \u201cLibrary of the Paranormal\u201d reproduces several dozen covers from Gleason\u2019s collection, most put out by obscure presses and graced with charmingly awful illustrations. Among the titles: \u201cIs Your Cosmic Radio Working?\u201d and \u201cHow to Contact Space People.\u201d Lampert, a cheerful fortysomething with a hipster-dad mien, admitted that his interest in Gleason\u2019s interest was maybe \u201cbizarre\u201d but definitely not \u201cflippant.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Akie Topal, the homeowner, wore a striped Breton shirt and rolled-up jeans, with an apron tied around her waist. She was accompanied by Heidi Henshaw, her real-estate agent. Greeting Lampert, Topal said, \u201cThe architecture here was inspired by the four elements of Gleason\u2019s life\u2014superstition, music, pool, and drinking.\u201d<\/p>\n

The entry area was a combination sitting room, library, and command center, with custom-made fixtures: chairs, bookcases, lighting, speakers, and cabinets full of switches, including one labelled \u201csnow melter\u201d and two dimmer knobs the size of salad plates. \u201cWow,\u201d Lampert said, as Topal twisted a knob. \u201cThose are the best rheostats I\u2019ve ever seen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou will see more switches downstairs,\u201d Topal promised.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou feel like you\u2019re in a spaceship,\u201d Henshaw said approvingly. That was true: the room looked like the bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise, if it had been finished in fine, burnished woods. Nearly every surface and appliance was curvilinear, hinting at Gaud\u00ed and also at swanky mid-century hotels and restaurants. The architect was Robert Cika, a disciple of a disciple of Frank Lloyd Wright.<\/p>\n

Read more Beyond Banners<\/a><\/p>\n

Topal explained that her late husband, Ronald Topal, a Manhattan orthodontist, bought the showplace home in 1976. Was he a big Gleason fan? \u201cNo,\u201d she said. \u201cHe just fell in love with the house.\u201d He kept it largely as he found it. In 1990, Topal moved in, but she\u2019d had a prior relationship with the comedian: she grew up in Osaka, and when she moved to the United States, in 1984, she said, \u201cI learned my English watching \u2018I Love Lucy,\u2019 \u2018The Honeymooners,\u2019 and those four older ladies living together.\u201d (\u201cThe Golden Girls.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Topal took Lampert into Gleason\u2019s office, where an organ was built into a wall. There was a drawer with a small jukebox inside and another that once stored a bar and now held batteries. The primary bedroom contained a round bed and a cabinet mounted on the ceiling for a TV set. There were drawers containing another jukebox and another bar.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow many bars are there total?\u201d Lampert asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cFive,\u201d Topal answered, after counting them on her fingers.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd how many bathrooms?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo and a half.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lampert laughed. \u201cThe math works.\u201d<\/p>\n

The tour descended down a vertiginous circular staircase to the ground floor, which featured a marble dance floor, three marble fireplaces, an indoor koi pond (empty), a game room, and two large bars set within fourteen paces of each other, give or take.<\/p>\n

With essentially no right angles or corners\u2014which are thought by some, possibly including Gleason, to attract evil spirits\u2014the architecture had a pleasantly disorienting quality. \u201cLike music, it just flows and flows,\u201d Topal said. \u201cBut when everyone comes here they get lost. When they try to leave, they go the wrong way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lampert tried to put himself in Gleason\u2019s shoes. \u201cNavigating this house inebriated\u2014that would be a challenge,\u201d he said. \u201cBut that\u2019s why they called him the Great One.\u201d\u00a0\u2666<\/p>\n

Read more On the Front Lines of Delaney Hall, ICE\u2019s Newark Prison<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The \u201cHoneymooners\u201d actor was obsessed with the supernatural\u2014even his house looked like a spacecraft. On a tour of the Mothership, will the author of a new Gleason book come face to face with the extraterrestrial? Bruce Handy writes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":527,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dept-of-idiosyncrasy"],"yoast_head":"\nJackie Gleason\u2019s Paranormal Activity - City Relocation News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=528\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jackie Gleason\u2019s Paranormal Activity - City Relocation News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The \u201cHoneymooners\u201d actor was obsessed with the supernatural\u2014even his house looked like a spacecraft. 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