Editor’s Note: The following feature is a work of creative fiction inspired by Columbus folklore surrounding the Snowden-Gray Manor. All names, businesses, and events are used fictitiously for dramatic and narrative purposes. The Blu Note Jazz Café, The Greyson Club, and any individuals referenced bear no connection to real-world persons or establishments. Any resemblance to actual events is coincidental. This story is presented purely as imaginative, theatrical horror — not as verified fact.
A New Chapter for an Old Mansion
The Snowden-Gray Manor at 530 E. Town Street, Columbus, Ohio, has always been more than a landmark — it’s a living relic of beauty, tragedy, and whispers. Built in the mid-1800s, the Victorian-Italianate mansion has survived war, urban renewal, and decades of strange ownership. In 2018, real-estate developer David Strause purchased the property with plans to restore it into a luxury event space. His sudden death in 2020 ended the project, and his company dissolved soon after, leaving the manor dark once again, a grand stage without an audience.
Now, after years of silence, the lights are returning.
Local entrepreneur Derrik Pannell, owner of the Blu Note Jazz Café on East Main Street and founder of the Center of Entrepreneurial Development, is set to reopen the mansion as the Blu Note Jazz Café at Snowden-Gray Manor. Opening in Late September, 2025, the new venue promises fine dining, rooftop views of downtown, and a private members-only experience called The Greyson Club, launched in the Fall of 2025.
To most, it’s a revival of culture and nightlife. To others — it’s the return of something that never truly left.
The 2019 Incident: Music That Opened the Wrong Door
Few remember that the Snowden-Gray Manor was the scene of a tragedy long before its current revival. On October 19, 2019, it hosted a private musical showcase organized by local jazz composer and former OSU instructor Miles Torrance. The invitation-only event featured what Torrance described as a “rediscovered composition” found during renovation work on the manor — handwritten, unsigned, and dated sometime in the early 1900s.
The notation was strange, irregular, written in a key that defied musical convention. Across the lower margin was a single line in fading sepia ink:
“To Play is to See Him.”
The piece began just before midnight. Witnesses later recalled that the air felt “too thick,” that the music seemed to twist on itself. Within minutes, the audience began convulsing, screaming, and turning on one another. When first responders arrived, thirty-seven people were dead, the rest catatonic or unresponsive.
Torrance’s body was never found. Only his bent trumpet remained onstage, still wet with blood.
Police labeled it “mass psychogenic illness.” But recovered audio fragments contained tones outside human hearing range — layered over rhythmic signatures resembling heartbeat patterns. On the original sheet music, investigators noted a faint impression in the paper: a pattern that appeared different to every person who examined it.
Locals now call it the Mark of the King in Yellow.
The Mark That Isn’t a Mark
The Mark, if that’s what it is, refuses definition. Some describe it as a crown made of spirals; others see a theatrical mask half-smiling and half-blank. A few insist it can’t be seen at all — only felt, like déjà vu tightening around the mind.
Psychologists refer to it as a “variable cognitive construct.” Occult researchers call it a sigil of transformation. But among those who’ve glimpsed it firsthand, the descriptions are eerily consistent in tone:
“Once you see it, you start to think you’ve seen it before.”
The Theatre of the King
The so-called cult that emerged in the aftermath of the massacre doesn’t behave like any known religion. Calling themselves The Company of the Yellow Stage, they reject the term worshippers. They see themselves as performers — actors in an eternal production written by something unseen.
Their meetings resemble rehearsals more than ceremonies. Witnesses describe participants speaking in looping, scripted dialogue, improvising scenes that never end. In some rural towns, there are reports of entire communities suddenly “speaking in character,” repeating phrases word-for-word until falling silent.
“They don’t pray to Him,” said a former musician connected to the group. “They act for Him. The King doesn’t want faith — He wants continuity.”
The King in Yellow isn’t worshipped like a god; He doesn’t demand offerings or loyalty. His power, they claim, comes through transformation — through the blurring of self and performance, through the acceptance that the world itself is a play and every soul a line in His script.
The Greyson Club: The Curtain Rises Again
With the reopening of the Blu Note Jazz Café at Snowden-Gray Manor, whispers have returned. Insiders claim the mansion’s private wing — The Greyson Club — features 16 rooms named after “acts” in an unfinished theatrical score. Invitations are printed on pale gold paper with faint watermarks visible only at an angle, said to shimmer like stage light.
When asked about these rumors, Blu Note representatives dismissed them as “urban legend and internet folklore.” Yet several workers involved in the restoration quit mid-project, citing “acoustic distortions” — echoes that carried longer than they should have, as though the building itself were listening.
At night, residents nearby report faint brass notes drifting down E. Town Street — a ghostly rehearsal no one ever sees.
The Story That Never Ends
Whatever occurred in 2019, it left an imprint — not only on the walls of the manor, but perhaps on the city itself. The Mark, the music, the madness — all threads of a performance that never stopped, merely paused between acts.
The Snowden-Gray Manor reopened in Late September 2025. The stage lights will glow again, the tables set, the band ready to play.
The King in Yellow doesn’t seek worshippers.
He waits for performers.
And once the curtain rises,
no one remembers when it ever came down.
Disclaimer: This article is a work of fiction inspired by local folklore. The Snowden-Gray Manor, Blu Note Jazz Café, and individuals mentioned are used in a creative context. Events described herein did not occur. Any similarities to actual persons or events are purely coincidental.