All aboard for the uncanny

One of my favorite places to meet friends for coffee and catching up also happens to be arguably one of the most — let's just say "haunted" — spots in Charlotte County. Downtown Kava — a non-alcoholic bar specializing in coffee, tea, kava, kratom and other botanical drinks — is housed in an old train station at 1009 Taylor Road, not far from Punta Gorda's downtown.

At nearly 100 years old, the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad depot is on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. Passenger rail service was discontinued in 1971, and the building gradually fell into disrepair. Local landowner Fred Babcock purchased the depot, then donated it to the Punta Gorda Historical Society in 1996. The building was restored to its original appearance in 2021.

A vibrant young couple, Ryan and Sarah Desrosiers, proposed renting the depot for their fledgling business, signed a lease in November 2021, then renovated it and opened Downtown Kava in March 2022.

While I have never experienced anything of a paranormal nature there, the unnerving accounts attested to by staff and customers alike are too numerous to ignore — even for a diehard skeptic like myself.

The Desrosiers seem like the antithesis of the gung-ho ghost-hunting type. In recounting their experiences, they admit to being initially in denial when the odd and inexplicable began to occur, but have since come to terms with it. There's something in that building that they inherited — something unseen that wasn't mentioned on the lease or recorded in the inventory.

Ryan was the first to experience small occurrences, minor enough to be brushed off as mere coincidence.

Toward the rear of the building is a staircase leading to what is now a combined office/storage area, although it might have once been living quarters for the depot's caretaker. The door had been removed, so Ryan rehung it. Soon after, the door would creep open on occasion and, at other times, slam shut. On its own.

Lights would flicker. Items would fall without being touched. A staff member would have the bill of his baseball cap slapped upward when taking out the trash. One time, guests heard distinctly human footsteps coming from the roof when there was no human up there.

"Bartenders have had some instances where a couple of glasses exploded — they popped for no reason," Sarah said. "And we used to have this big plastic ice scoop on top of our ice maker. It's a pretty heavy scoop. It would just fly off and land a couple of feet away from where it was. Nobody had touched it; it was (stored) up high."

Sarah, herself, claims that when she used to open up the business in the morning, she would be greeted by the odor of cigar smoke, especially in the museum area, which was once the station manager's office. It was so strong, she said, you would've expected to see the cloud of smoke right in front of your face, but there was no rational indication as to where the scent was coming from.

At first, the couple tried to pawn it all off as just the creaks and quirks of a century old building.

"I had been just trying to make excuses for what was happening," Ryan confessed.

Until.

One night, Ryan was closing, and "That's when I got, like, an overwhelmed feeling — like, it was just a real bad feeling. ... All the hair stood up on the back of my neck and I just felt like somebody was in my face."

The couple was to discover they were not alone in experiencing eerie phenomena. Numerous patrons described odd feelings or strange occurrences — some without previous knowledge of a supposed "spirit."

The most telling encounter came from a customer who had apparently performed a paranormal investigation inside the depot before it became Downtown Kava.

"He asked me, 'Oh, have you met Edgar yet? And have you smelled his tobacco smoke yet?' Sarah recalled. "And all the hair on the back of my neck stood up."

Edgar would be Edgar Rountree, who was made the depot's first station manager in 1908. He continued to work there until 1933, when he died suddenly.

"I like to think it's him," Sarah said. Then she added with a laugh, "Somebody said, 'Can you imagine you die and then for all of eternity you have to go back to work?' But I think he loved his job."

Downtown Kava's employees have checklists for opening and closing procedures that include greeting the entity by name in the morning and wishing him a good night in the evening.

Of course, there would be only one way to find out for certain if Edgar Rountree's spirit is truly the one they're sensing — but the Desrosiers are having none of it. They believe that, now with the old depot restored and teeming with people again, old Edgar is actually happy about it.

And they want to keep him that way.

The couple have been approached by paranormal investigators and mediums who want to conduct research and perform séances, but have turned them all down.

According to Sarah, she wants to risk neither upsetting, even angering, Edgar, nor creating an opening for something to enter the depot that isn't Edgar — something potentially malevolent or sinister.

Up until recently, all of the unusual activity has occurred with the walls of the historic depot. But a recent development has left the Desrosiers wondering if Edgar has — possibly unwanted — company.

One customer, on two separate occasions, reported seeing a shadowy figure in the parking lot. When he looked over, he saw a random handprint in the condensation on his car window.

"It looked like the fingers were pointy, like a claw," Ryan explained. "It had five fingers but it was, like, they started at a point and came down. And you could see the fingers and the start of the palm, but the bottom wasn't really there. And then that happened again when his girlfriend was in the car with him."

Ryan said he's naturally skeptical of such tales.

"Sometimes I'm, like, 'Yeah, yeah, OK' when people tell you ghost stories, and you can tell they're made up.

"But these customers were very serious in telling us the story. ...

"So now I'm, like, OK, that might be something different than what we've got going on in here."

It certainly sounds like something different. And from the likes of it, I hope that it — whatever it is — stays outside.

Downtown Kava is my happy place. The last thing I need is an evil spirit harassing me — especially before I've finished my first cappuccino. ¦